


Nuka Girl

by elo_elo



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dom!Hancock, Dom/sub Undertones, Double Penetration, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hancock's a secret softie, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light BDSM, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Non-Canon Compliant Sole Survivor, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Voice Kink, but like in an extremely casual way, lol, who really likes rough sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-11-24 17:15:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18167957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elo_elo/pseuds/elo_elo
Summary: In the short time she stayed there, June was an outsider in Sanctuary Hills, but the dangers of the Commonwealth have her nostalgic for the suburb's stability and safety. Now that she's on the other side of the apocalypse, she's got only a vague plan of what to do next, no combat skills to speak of, and a few bad habits that she can't seem to shake. Can a certain charming mayor keep her from becoming super mutant food out in the wasteland? Is he the stability she didn't even know she needed?





	1. Firsts

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So I took a lotta bit of liberty with my Sole Survivor. In my playthrough, I always imagined her as Nora's troublemaker little sister who's come to Sanctuary Hills to help with Sean after Nate's struggle with severe PTSD eventually culminates in his suicide. She and Sean are the only ones who survive the vault. 
> 
> I'll be adding more sexual tags as the fic goes along.

Just when he thinks he’s seen everything, John Hancock sees her. Mouthing off at Finn a little too loudly for a girl her size. Sweet thing looking like she’d hopped out of a Nuka Cola ad, all leg and soft blonde waves. And shit, those freckles. Sprinkled on her nose and her high, pretty cheekbones. Hoist her up on a rocket ship and he’d buy that shit for sure. Face like a goddamn angel, but a chip on her shoulder big enough to break her back. Cussing Finn out like she might kill him. It’s all interesting enough to pull him away from his mayoral duties and head a little more out into the courtyard.

         He leans against the State House and watches Finn shake her down. He’s twice as big as this girl, at least, and frankly he seems just as surprised as Hancock that she’s not taking his shit. Hancock can’t really hear what she’s saying, but it must be something good because Finn is stumbling over his words like a goddamn fool. She spits like an angry cat at his feet. Hancock would be lying if he didn’t admit he’s a little smitten already.

         He shifts to try and get a better look at her ass and notices a blood-soaked bandage wrapped too tight around her left thigh. Something twists in his gut. Looks like the girl’s been taking a few hits out in the wastes.

         Hancock’s having a good kinda high this morning. The buzzy kind. Makes his fingers itchy. Makes him feel real generous. He runs his knife along the grooves in his palm and steps out from the shadows. He decides then and there that this broad isn’t gonna take anymore hits today, not in his town, and Finn is reeling back like he’s about to give her a good one.

 

         Her reaction told Hancock pretty much everything he needed to know. Surprised, yeah, but sort of giddy too. Maybe aroused? That one might be wishful thinking. She’s watching him twirl his knife and wets those big, pretty lips of hers with her tongue. Hell, he’s already having more fun than he’s had in months. Now that he’s closer, he sees she’s got a little pet. Cute. Until it bears its big, bloody teeth at him. She runs her long fingers over the pooch’s ear and the thing settles down with a last warning growl in his direction. “Your pooch don’t like me much.”

         She raises an eyebrow. “Should he?” He doesn’t recognize her accent, but he sure does like the way it sounds.

         She’s trembling a little, but Hancock can’t tell if she’s scared or excited. Or, hell, maybe she’s just cold. One thing for sure though, she can’t seem to take her eyes off him. Her pupils are blown wide, jaw a little slack. He recognizes that look, like she’s trying to piece him together. “I’m a ghoul sweetheart, you can stop staring.”

         She scrunches her nose. “What’s a ghoul?”

         “Whoa-ho-ho-ho, sweetheart, you really are new in town.”

         She looks almost offended and that pretty face of hers ain’t so pretty when she’s scowling like that. “You know what? I know what you look like.” Bratty streak. That’s cute too.  

         He grins, enjoying this probably more than he should. “And what do I look like, sister?”

         “An asshole.” She nearly spits it at him.

         Hancock cracks an honest to god beaming smile. “Oh, I can tell I’m gonna like you already.”

 

         She heads off, surprisingly, to the Memory Den. He figured her more for a Third Rail type and he sure as hell can’t imagine what she’d want to be reliving. Not born and bred in one of those shithole vaults like he figures she was. Unless she pulled that suit off some poor dead sod. The thought delights him a little. He takes a long hit of jet and lets himself imagine it. Easier said than done. She barely looks big enough to give a proper shakedown to a corpse much less undress it, so the fantasy loses steam pretty quickly. He’s flipping through other fantasies he can try and have her star in when it dawns on him. He peels himself up from his spot on the couch and yells for Fahrenheit.

          She slinks into the room, scowling. He knows there are about a million other things she probably needs to be doing, but the mentats he took are fucking roaring through his system and he can’t let this train of thought go. “You see that girl that came into town this afternoon?”

         “The one you killed our best fighter for?” If he wasn’t so earth-shatteringly high, he might have actually cared how acid-laced her tone is right now.

         Hancock grins. “That’s the one. How about you do me a little favor and find out that sweet thing’s name.”

         Fahr rolls her eyes. “You think that’s a good use of my time?”

         “I sure don’t.” Hancock sits up, hands clasped between his knees. He beams up at her. “But I’m asking anyway.”

 

         Fahrenheit’s back a few hours later, looking even more radiantly pissed than when she left. He’s gonna have to ask around to get the full story on this mood. “It’s June.” She says, gritting her teeth. Hancock sits up, a little dazed. “Your girl. Her name is June.”

         He grins. June. Like a sweet summer day. She looks like a June, now that he’s thinking about it. He reaches for one of the bottles on his coffee table. He doesn’t give a shit what’s inside as long as it burns like motor oil. “My girl, huh?” He could use a girl, for a couple nights at least. Especially one as pretty as that. “You tell Whitechapel Charlie that _my girl_ drinks for free tonight. Compliments of the mayor.”


	2. Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June’s gotten under Hancock’s skin. And he might like her there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always really liked the "blue hazy" option for my character in game.   
> I know it's supposed to be a chem addiction thing, but this is my backstory for those eyes.

His scouts see June coming a mile off. She’s out by Postal Square, sniper rifle strapped to her back, looking a little petrified, a little out of her element. Still in the company of that feral but strangely doting little mutt, but this time with a very familiar synth in tow.

         Hancock meets them at the entrance, leaning jauntily on the gate, running the sharp end of his knife gently along each leathered finger. “Fancy meeting you here.” Hancock croons, never taking his eyes off the blade on his skin. She beams. He can feel it without looking.

         Junie’s got a dangerous sort of smile, easy to underestimate. And judging by the blood and gut soaked armor she rolls into town with, some raiders made that fateful error pretty recently.

He invites them to stay, not in the Rexford, but with him in the Statehouse. Offers up some liquor, some chems. A shower. June doesn’t even hesitate. They’re similar like that, he can tell, always chasing pleasure. After that very first night, good ole Charlie told him she’d nearly cleaned the bar out. A real hedonist.

Hancock does his best to facilitate it. They _are_ his guests. And it’s good to see Nick, even if the new cracks in his synthetic skin give Hancock the willies. Pot, kettle, black.

The wasteland is starting to get cold. It’ll probably snow soon. That glittering white that makes his teeth zing, so radioactive he feels almost super human when it falls on his skin. Hancock has Fahrenheit light the fireplace. He scrounges up a blanket for his shivering little vaultie. She ignores it, stalking around the room like a cat. Nick’s going on about something or another and Hancock just lets his head loll around on the back of the couch, trying to follow her nimble little movements around his state room. She could be robbing him blind and he’d still like to watch. So he’s being a letch, sure, but she’s playing along. Shooting him heavy glances, dancing her fingers over his shit. She takes one of his candle sticks so firmly in her grip that his hips twitch. Heady stuff. Extra nice with all the jet he’s been shooting this evening. Makes everything go slo-o-o-o-ow. It’s good vibes all around. So he’s all the more surprised when she drops her little act, gulping loud enough that Fahrenheit hears it from the hallway. Pops her red head in the doorway to see what all the fuss is about.

 June’s caught her reflection in one of his dusty mirrors and he looks up in time to see her recoil from it. It’s a reaction he knows so well that he flinches, mimes her expression before he can stop himself. He lived that shit for years. Patches of his skin hardened and burned; the whites of his eyes turned bloody red, then pitch dark, black and unrecognizable. Everyday he’d wake up and search for something awful, some new horror. It’s been years since his body finally stopped changing. He’s made his peace. But he’s still a ghoul, radiating poison, warped and freaky. Self-loathing still fits easy, like it seems to on her now. Hancock narrows his eyes, studying her reflection, trying to find the thing that’s spooked her. He can’t. He leans back and worries what’s left of his lip with his teeth. Maybe he should just ask her. It’s that kind of night, really. Chatty. _Intimate._

Nick beats him to the punch. Hancock figures that makes sense. They’ve been traveling together for weeks, seem to be riding on the same wavelength. Funny, since they seem to be about as different as two people can be. Still. Makes sense that he would know all her little nuances. Hancock doesn’t like the way jealousy coils in his gut. “Still not used to it?”

Her long, slender fingers ghost just below her eyes, softly brushing the skin there. “No, I’m not.” When she’s not putting on that flirtatious little act, her voice is somber, a little gravely. It’s damn pleasurable to get to hear it. Damn pleasurable to watch as she lets her guard down in his house. Hancock shakes his head like it’ll clear the chem fog out. He wants to pay attention, wants to be up to speed. “Always catches me by surprise.”

“What we talking ‘bout here?” Hancock splays his legs out and bounces a bottle of whiskey on his knee. He’s trying to play it cool, but that last hit of jet is fucking him up a little. He takes a long swig of booze to try and settle himself down.

“My eyes.” She turns away from the mirror and folds herself into the chair opposite him. She’s waifish, he thinks, willowy like he ain’t never seen in the wastes. Hancock doesn’t imagine a figure like hers lasted very long after he bombs fell. Not practical. She’s a pretty little relic.

Hancock _did_ notice her eyes that first afternoon in Goodneighbor. Pretty much right away. Baby blues, but not like any he’d ever seen. Frosted over like panes of glass in a rad storm. Sometimes it’s hard to track where she’s looking they’re so cloudy. He didn’t think too much of them at the time, really. He figured that maybe all pre-war broads had eyes like that. Hell, maybe the magazines lied and the books never mentioned it. Kinda seems like a dumb thing to think now that he’s considering it. “What about ‘em?”

“They didn’t used to be like this.”

“No?”

She laughs in a sort of wounded way. “These look normal to you?”

“Look around sister. You think I’d be in any position to tell you what is and what ain’t normal?” She doesn’t laugh like he wants her too. Just frowns and chips away at his end table with her nails. Nasty habit. Sometimes he forgets that she’s a little feral. He shouldn’t though, not with how awful quiet his warehouses have been since she tore through there like a super mutant.

Nick cuts in. “Docs in Diamond City think it’s a side effect of the cryo.” Ah yes. His little frozen popsicle. Sometime it’s hard to square that Joni is old as dirt. On ice through the whole war. Through everything. She has a glow that isn’t radioactive. Young and bright and alive. Hancock figures she’s the only person alive in the whole Commonwealth who wasn’t born and bred malnourished. Though she’s looking a little scrawnier these days, a little thinner in the face. She’s  snubbed the roast brahman he laid out for them, running those delicious fingers instead over the sugary, and highly fucking radiated, treats he’s got on his desk. He looks at her a little closer. Her gums are looking a little pale, like she’s soaked up too many rads and he’s starting to think that this shit is all she eats. He imagines her out in the wastes eating only snack cakes. Sick and starving and miserable and he’s suddenly trying to figure out if he can convince her to stay in Goodneighbor. Just for a little while. _Shit._ Hancock can’t believe he’s over here fretting about some broad’s nutrition. He ain’t got the time no matter how pretty her lips or her freckles or, goddamn, her fucking long ass legs are. _Fuck._ He fumbles around in his side table drawer for the radaway Fahr stashes there. He tosses it to her.  

June catches it, cocks her head at him. He likes the shit eating grin she’s got on her face, but it unnerves him how quickly her moods can change. “Aw, you worried about me Mayor Hancock?”

He grins, lighting a cigarette. “Who me?” The smoke comes out the holes where his nose should be. “Nah, you seem like you got it covered, sunshine.” She’s got a pretty little blush at the nickname. He could get used to _that_ real easy. “Know how to use it?”

She weighs the drip bag in her hand. “Yeah, I think so.”

“She’s resourceful, she’ll figure it out.” The old synth ashes his cigarette. Hancock can tell he’s working through something in that big brain of his. The detectives leans forward, tenting his fingers. “Speaking of resourceful. You owe me a story, June.” She cocks an eyebrow. “Vault 81. You told the Overseer that you’d gone down like, and these are your words, a junkyard dog when the bombs fell. That true?”

His Junie shrugs. “True enough.” She says it so somberly Hancock knows she ain’t lying.

He wants the story, but he wants to see her smile again more. Wild that even though he barely knows the girl, he so badly wants to please her. He’s always loved a risky drug. “Scrapper even before the wasteland, huh?” There they go, those pretty, pouty lips. She tucks her tongue a little between her teeth, delighted. Her eyes crinkle when she smiles and, when she really smiles, those eyes go even frostier. It’s the reaction he was hoping for and it goes straight to his gut.

Nick swirls the whiskey in his glass, looking contemplatively down at it.  “So, I’ve been wondering.” She hums for him to continue, taking a swig from Hancock’s bottle. He winks at her and she preens. “What was your plan?” June cocks her head, waiting for him to clarify. Hancock’s noticed that June rarely has to speak to get her point across. He figures she knows that everyone’s looking at her anyway, knows she can play coy like this. “Were you just gonna run back outside? What with nukes falling like raindrops?”

June snorts. “No, of course not. I knew I was finished.” Her nose twitches like a little rabbit. She’s looking off center and she frowns before she can catch herself, before she can shift back to the flirtatiously neutral expression Hancock’s gotten so used to. “I just figured that if they were going to lock me in some glass coffin, I’d at least make them work for it.”

“And did you? “The jet is wearing off now and Hancock reaches for a nearby tin of mentats.

She winks. “Had to strap me in.”

“Atta girl.” He rolls the tablets around in his mouth until the chalky, grapey flavor coats his whole mouth. “So you kept your eyes open?” Hancock’s pieced it together now. The high is making him feel creative, real intellectual, and he figures the icy fog in her eyes is exactly that. “Why?”

“I thought it was the last thing I was ever going to see.” June fingers the syringe of jet on his side table, rolls it across the surface of her palm. “I wanted to see it.” Her voice has dropped a couple octaves, husky again, Her shoulders are so tight Hancock can see it from where he’s sitting. She’s trembling a little, like just the memory is making her cold. Hancock wants to rub his hands on her, warm her inch by inch. Christ, it must be the chems making him feel like this. “Besides,” she says with a wry smile, “I’ve always loved a good show.” He’s listening to a goddamn tragedy, but she’s delivering it like a comedy, light and punchy. Her recovery is so good that Hancock nearly misses the little twitch at the corner of her mouth, the slump she has to pull herself out of. Those eyes do her big favors: conceal whatever her easy charm can’t. But Hancock sees it, the pain roiling under the surface. She’s complicated in ways he can’t even begin to imagine. He supposes he already knew that. Supposes that’s why he invited her up here in the first place.

 

In the end, Hancock can’t convince her to stay. She acts amused that he’d even try, but that pretty little blush she gets when he asks tells him all he needs to know. He wants to do all kinds of bad things to her, but, weirdly, _worryingly,_ mostly he just wants to be sure she’ll make it back to Goodneighbor in one piece.

After she leaves, he spends more time on the Statehouse balcony than he ever used to. “The people need to see me,” he tells Fahrenheit. It’s a convenient little lie. Not a very convincing one either. They both know what he’s doing: waiting, hoping to see a little blue dot out beyond the city walls. He takes the leads on some of his patrols aside and tells them to keep an eye out for a cute little thing in a vault suit. He’s both disappointed and relieved when they come back and report nothing. More than once Fahrenheit asks him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, wasting resources like that. And she’s got a fucking point.

He tries to settle his confusion about this girl the only way he really knows how: by jacking off. Figures his cock will set his wayward brain straight. He’ll close his eyes and imagine the tight little apple ass of hers in that suit. He imagines running his hands over it, squeezing until he can feel her heartbeat in the tips of his fingers. He imagines her pretty lips opening up for him, kissing the head of his cock, looking up at him, wanting.

The fantasy usually ends about there, when they make eye contact. After that, he can only think of her in the vault. Arms outstretched, fingers pressed into the glass as it freezes slowly over. Eyes open in terror, or defiance, or both. Hancock wonders if she screamed.

How long has it taken her to carve herself out of the cryo pod? How long until she realized she was the only one left alive? He imagines her stumbling around the empty vault, two hundred years older than when she saw it last, surrounded by corpses and rad roaches. What did the sun feel like when she first dug her way out? Did it hurt? The way the new world looked must have. And there she was, that slip of a thing. All alone in the rubble. It really kills his damn mood when he starts thinking shit like this.

Hancock’ll sit up in bed and rummage for some medex. It’ll numb him out until he feels frozen too. Was it painful to freeze like that? He’d see her at Third Rail a few times, palling around with MacCready. She’d wink at him from across the room, flirt with all the raiders daring enough to try and talk to her. But sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, she’d hold herself so gingerly, like she was in terrible, terrible pain. Hancock wants to hold her. Goddamn, he can’t remember if he ever wanted to just hold someone. When he slips off into the oblivion of sleep, he sees June, breathing frost in that metal coffin, skin cold and pale, but not yet dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Treats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June comes to apologize for breaking into Hancock's strongroom and the night takes a turn neither of them expected.

When he sees June again, she’s at his gate, munching on a box of sugarbombs. Nick’s not with her anymore. Nobody is. It’s just her and that mangy pooch in his town square and sister is looking scrawnier than ever. Shit, the dog looks like he’s been eating better than her. She’s got a bleeding ulcer on her bottom lip to boot. Too many fucking rads. He can see _that_ from a mile away.

         “That shit’ll kill you.” Hancock reaches for the cereal, but she’s too quick for him. She spins away with it, popping a few more glistening kernels into her mouth.

         “Doubt it’ll get its chance.” That low voice again. She’s not putting on any airs for him now. Hancock’s’ not sure whether to be worried or flattered.

         Worried, he decides, taking a closer look at the dark circles under her eyes. “No kidding. I can smell the rads on you from here.” She flinches. “You trying to look like me?”

         “I’m here to apologize.”

         “Oh?” She narrows her eyes at him, so he cuts the act. “Heard you blasting through the rubble all morning. Not all that subtle.”

         She shrugs “I knew it was a stupid plan even before I figured out it was you we were stealing from.”

         “So why do it?” A little crowd’s gathering on the edge of the city center. No doubt they expect Hancock to beat the living shit out of her. Word’s gotten around that his vaultie has gotten herself ass deep in trouble. And not the kind Hancock is particularly fond of. Hell, he probably _should_ beat the hell out of her the way she’s looking at him, but right now he just wants to take this show inside. June ain’t having it though. She ignores him when he gestures toward the Statehouse.

It occurs to him that maybe she’s afraid of what he’ll do if they go inside, worried that he’ll hurt her. Maybe she thinks being out in the open will keep her safe. She’s wrong, on both accounts. He ain’t planning on hurting her, but, if he was, ain’t nobody in Goodneighbor would say a damn thing about it, public square or no. “I’m just sorry alright. Christ, let me apologize for shit’s sake.”

He saunters over closer to her, lowers his voice. “You hurtin’ for caps, sweet thing?”

June lays her hand on his chest to put some distance between them. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even seem to notice that she’s got her fingers on some of his most gnarled, rad burnt skin. The intimacy in that touch is something fucking else and all the things he was planning to say sort of drift off, his focus narrowing to the spot where she’s rested her hand. “Try to sound less like a complete thug, why don’t you.”

Hancock clears his throat. “June.” The soft way he’s speaking to her now seems to only rattle her more. “You know I ain’t mad, right?”

She blinks at him like he’s the dumbest piece of shit in the entire Commonwealth. “You’re not?”

“Nah. You did ole No Nose in pretty good, so why don’t we call it even, huh? That settle alright with you, sister?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” It comes out with a pained little laugh and, shit, does she look tired. Like she hasn’t seen the business end of a bed in days. She dirty too, grimy. Why the hell is she out here alone?”

“You look like shit. Seems to me like you’ve been punished enough.”

She smiles that wry little smile. “Such a charmer.”

“Always.” Without giving her a chance to fight him on it, he hoists her pack off her shoulders and slings it over his own. “Come on sunshine, let’s fix you up.”

 

         With a dose of radaway in her and a good scrub in his tub, June’s looking almost like the vaultie he remembers. She’s definitely acting like it: crawling languidly around on his furniture like a cat. She won’t sit still. As usual. But he much prefers this to the ghost who showed up at his gate that morning.

         Hancock doubles up on mentats, forgoing the whiskey he’d been looking forward to all day. He needs to be goddamn smart about this. “So, you low on caps?”

         “Never was very good with money.”

         “Seems like it.”

         June gazes over the high back of one of his chair at him, resting her head on her arms. Her hair is curling as it dries, pretty little waves that spill onto the red upholstery. “So, are you seriously not mad at me?”

         He was mad, actually. Righteously fucking pissed. When he found out it was June slumming with Bobbi he about punched a goddamn wall. Feeling betrayed and wildly insecure. Two emotions he sort of figured his ghoulish ass left behind in Diamond City. But when word got back to him that June shot No Nose right between her yellowed eyes, he’d cooled it. Probably would have cooled it either way, honestly. Sister has a way of bending him in her direction. June offing that woman, though, that was a touching display of loyalty he wasn’t entirely expecting. It felt vindicating. “Nah, I’m not mad.” She narrows her eyes at him, like she doesn’t quite believe it. Hancock doesn’t move a muscle and, after a long stretch of silence, June seems satisfied that whatever punishment she’d been expecting probably isn’t coming.

         When she moves again, he knows she’s heading for his drawers of snack cakes. She gets this look when she’s about to eat. He’s seen it before on ferals. “Come here.” She startles. “You’re gonna have a drink with me.”

         “And if I don’t want to” She’s standing beside his desk, about ready to start yowling and fighting, looking like a petulant child.

         “Then don’t.” The cap on his bourbon comes off easy. “No skin off my nose.” He chuckles at his own joke. “But you’re not gonna eat that shit, understand?”

         “Excuse me?”

         “You heard me. You wanna eat like a rad roach, that’s your business, but that’s my food and I ain’t given you permission to have it.”

         “Fine,” her voice wavers. She must be fucking _starving_ to sound that small, that helpless. His gut twists. “I’ll go buy some off Daisy”

         “Sure you will. With that windfall from my strongroom right?” She looks so dejected that he cools it a little, softens his tone. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya. Now come here.” She looks righteously pissed, but sits down across from him anyway, tucking her legs in a pretzel under her. She’s got these long fucking limbs and she’s always doing these crazy things with them. Graceful like he ain’t never seen, but sort of wacky too. Hancock can’t take his eyes off her and the way she’s looking at him now makes him want to reconsider his plan. Hell, the wasteland is tough enough. If she wants to eat herself to death in a haze of rotten sugar and radiation then who is he to stop her? She sniffles and a thin line of blood trickles from her nose to her lips. _Goddamn it._

         “Listen, why don’t I have one of my boys cook you up something that won’t melt your skin off, huh?”

         She crosses her arms. The pooch startles, sensing her change in mood, and fires a single warning bark in Hancock’s direction. “What’s this all about?”

         “I’m gonna feed you proper.”

         She cocks an eyebrow at him. He can see her receding behind that carefully crafted front. She even looks lighter, like she’s locked part of herself away. “Are you wooing me, Mayor Hancock?”

         “Nah, I’m caring for ya and you should be goddamned honored. Ain’t every day the mayor of Goodneighbor plays mother hen.”

 

         It’s a little thrilling when she eats because he tells her to. Yeah, Hancock’s used to ordering people around, making people jump, but it’s different with June. She’s a different kind of wild and he doesn’t just want her to do what he says, he wants her approval. He can practically hear Fahrenheit hissing about how dangerous that is, to feel that way. It doesn’t interest him, though, not when  June’s picking at the roast brahman with her fingers, leaning forward so he can see the curve of her tits in that suit.

He spends so much time ogling her tight fucking body that it takes a minute for him to realize that she isn’t actually eating any of the food. “What’s the problem, sister?”

She sniffs at a bite. “Everything here tastes so weird.”

Hancock leans back on the couch, getting a better look at her. “You’re kind of a brat, ain’t ya?”

She leans down to scratch the pooch behind his ears. “Oh, for sure.”

Hancock grins. “You want to tell me why that is?”

June narrows her eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

He spreads his legs, trying to look real casual-like. “Tell me about yourself, sunshine.”

“Are you serious?”

Hancock pops a coupla mentats into his mouth. “Oh, I’m dead serious, sweet thing. Seems like we’re settling in for the night, don’t it?” June looks out the window like it’s just dawning on her that she’s been her for hours, that it’s pitch dark outside. “Let’s have a chat.” She looks back at him, eyes big as saucers. She looks real young like this, sort of startled. It stirs something in him that he’s too fucked up to try and name, so he just falls back on what he’s good at: running his mouth. “So where you from, huh?”

He doesn’t really expect her to answer, sort of expects them to keep this banter up all night long. But she seems to want to talk, seems a little relieved even. He wonders if anyone’s asked her shit like this. Valentine for sure, but Hancock figures that probably felt more like an interrogation. “I’m from California. Southern California.”

“California.” He cracks open a beer and leans back. “Huh, read about that in a book once.”

June snorts. “You read?”

“Well of course, sugar. Ain’t much else to do at the end of the world.” He clicks his tongue against his teeth. “And I’m gonna choose to ignore your implication with that one.” The beer tastes a little turned, but he doesn’t much mind. “So tell me, are all California girls as beautiful as you?”

She smiles, head cocked. “Yeah, all of us. You’d lose your mind.” She suddenly frowns, eyes darting toward the window. “It probably doesn’t even exist anymore, right? Probably got blown off the face of the planet.”

Hancock sits up and passes his beer to her. “Hard to know.” She takes a few sullen sips and he’s not sure if he should try to change the subject or press on. But, hell, he’s never been good at this delicate shit, so he just rides the energy and keeps asking. “So how’d you end up in Boston?”

“My sister.” She picks at the skin around her thumb, a little trickle of blood snakes toward her palm. He has half a mind to take her hold of her hands, put a stop to that destructive shit. But the jet he took earlier has him practically glued to the couch. Pot, kettle, black. “Nora.”

“Pretty name.” She passes the beer back to him. It’s a little weird, honestly, to be alone here with her. He can’t remember the last time he was alone with a woman for this long without fucking her. But he also can’t remember the last time he was this interested in actually getting to know someone. His tin of mentats is empty which is poor timing because he can tell he’s circling a dangerous topic and he needs to be smart. It’s pretty much a fucking given that her sister is long fucking dead and he doesn’t want to set her off. “She living in Boston, then?”

“Was yeah.” June seems to be trying to figure out what to say too. He gets it. There’s probably a lot of shit he wouldn’t understand, shit that doesn’t exist anymore. She takes her lower lip between her fingers, tugging a little. “I was here for a visit. When the bombs fell, I mean”

“From California?”  

“From New York.”

“The city?” She nods. “Well all be, I know that one.”

June grins. The room’s back to normal, the air light and easy again. “Greatest city in the world.”

“So the books tell me. What’s a girl like you do in New York City?”

“I was a dancer.” Hancock whistles. “Not like that you fucking animal.”

He chuckles, leaning down to light another cigarette. The room’s a little hazy now, filled with cigarette smoke. “What kind of dancer were you then, sweet thing?”

“I danced ballet.”

“I think I’ve read about that.” He hasn’t, but he makes a note to rifle through his books to see if he can find anything on it.

She’s suddenly somber. He can barely keep pace with her moods. “It’s kind of a blessing really. That I was only here a few months. That I never got to know Boston.” Hancock stays silent. He’s not sure what direction she’s trying to take this, and he doesn’t want to trip up. “I think it would be a lot harder if this was a place I’d really known before the bombs.” Her lips are trembling, hands curled around each other at her chest. It’s hard anyway, he can see that. It’s so, so hard and he can’t really understand it, but it makes his chest tight, makes it a little harder to breathe. She looks exhausted, running on fumes.

“Junie.” She perks up like she’s just come out of a trance. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

For once, she doesn’t fight him. Just wipes her eyes with the palms of her hands and stands. “Yeah, that sounds good actually. I could use some sleep.” He watches her head out into the hallway sort of in a daze, the pooch padding behind her, ever doting. It’s a sort of funny feeling that she knows where she’s going, that she’s so familiar with his place. June likes the mattresses up in the attic room. He remembers that from the first time she stayed in the Statehouse, her and Nick. It’s the windows up there, he thinks. Sometimes she acts so much like a damn cat that he can imagine her perched on the sill of one of them, watching the city from above. Maybe it makes her feel safer to be that high up. And she _is_ safe here, even if she doesn’t know it. He’d fuck up any sorry son of a bitch that tried to get up those stairs to her.

Hancock lays back and kneads the tough flesh between his eyes. He’s been scheming, all day, trying to figure out a way to follow June back out into the wastes. Trying to figure out why he wants to do that in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!


	4. Fly Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hancock and June have fallen into a routine out in the wasteland, but something they stumble onto interrupts it in a big way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a discussion of suicide in this chapter so if that might trigger you, you may want to skip it.

Damned if Hancock knows how the hell he ended up back out in the wastes, chasing some pre-war tail, doing shit like finding some kid’s lost pet. He might say that June can be very persuasive when she wants to be, but, shit, he’s the one who offered. He tries not to think too hard about why she agreed so readily, gets those impure thoughts running rampant and he can’t deal too much with that in the close quarters they’ve been keeping.

Can’t say he regrets tagging along, though. The view from behind June is mighty fine and the conversation ain’t bad either. And it sure doesn’t get boring. Seems like Junie’s got her hand in every pot in the Commonwealth. The world’s most reluctant, chaotic do-gooder. And she _is_ trying to do good, he sees the right away. It’s the execution that sometimes makes him chuckle. She’s a pretty shit fighter, actually. Hell, Hancock can’t figure out how she managed to survive this long on her own.

After a month or so, they ended up working out a system. June sticks to the shadows, picking off people from a vantage, lets him do the dirty work. That feels mighty nice, he discovers. He likes the way she’s started to depend him, even if he doesn’t want to really admit how much he’s started to depend on her too. Sometimes he feels like a bodyguard, sometimes like a wasteland translator. There’s so much she doesn’t understand, but he’s learning too. She’s doing something more complicated to him, something he has trouble putting his finger on. He feels like a different John Hancock when he’s with her, he feels a little like the man John McDonough might have wanted him to be. He doesn’t linger long on thoughts like these, not good for the system. Besides, he can barely keep up with her as is. She’s like a sun beam. Bright and beautiful and impossible to predict. She slips through his fingers so often, but she always comes back. She’s messy, but it works. Her shit works and _they_ have started to work too. They’ve got a rapport, a system.

So, he can’t complain. Not even today when she’s got him mule-ing enough fire power to level Boston. No, it ain’t a bad day. Sun’s shining, not a cloud in the sky. Not too hot yet. Just right. Almost summer. Christ, he can barely believe it. Seems like yesterday that she showed up that first time inside his city. He glances over at her. She looks no older, unchanged by the wastes, like maybe the cryo has done something permanent to her. Maybe she’ll stay this way forever. She catches him looking and grins, leaning back on her hands.

June loves the sun. He learned that real quick. Seems to almost need it, preening like a goddamn bird when it’s out. Today she seems especially happy to be out in it, unzipping her suit a little to let its rays warm her skin.

They’ve been nursing a bottle of wine they’d filched from a raider’s camp a while back, passing it back and forth. The broken overpass where they’re sitting has a great view of the Easy City Downs and June seems to find the robot races sort of charming. Hancock wishes he could head down and pay Eager Ernie a little visit, place a few bets, but he’s not about to drag June down there, not about to leave her on her own either.

Hancock watches the race for a while before he notices that June’s dozed off. She’s resting on her arms, hair flowing over the metal guardrail where she’s laid her head. Much as he wants to just let her snooze like this, it ain’t safe, not with the raiders finishing up at the Downs. He nudges her awake, helps her to her feet. She yawns, stretching out. “Who won?”

“Lady Lovelace.” Hancock brushes some dirt off her suit and she lets him, She’s pliable like that when she’s just woken up, searching out his heat. He knows that this shit right here is special, that he’s probably one of only a handful of people on the whole goddamn planet who gets to see this part of her.

With the caravan workers, she’s strategically flirtatious, with the settlers, she’s friendly and chatty. That’s her real talent. June’s a chameleon, a charmer. But in the early morning, or just before she slips off to sleep, she’ll look at him with the softest eyes, boneless on whatever mattress or sleeping bag they’ve found out in the wastes. She looks at him like she trusts him most in the whole world and his chest squeezes when he thinks about it. He’s a bad man by most anybody’s estimation, but she doesn’t seem to think so, especially not in those fleeting moments.

In the light of day, she is never so vulnerable. He takes it when she can get it. Like right now, sleep still heavy on her. She lets him brush a few strands of hair from her face. ‘Which one is that?”

“The one you wanted.” She grins and, before long, starts to shimmy down off the overpass. That’s a nice view too.

So, yeah, Hancock’s day is going pretty good. Sunshine, wine. He sneaks a few more touches in as they travel, just teasing, and she mostly lets them. Because they’re harmless, they both know that. Or, at least, he hopes she knows that. Hancock’s pretty much abandoned the idea of fucking June, even if his cock furiously disagrees. The positioning ain’t good. Much as he’d like to get between those pretty thighs, at this point he’s pretty sure his brain might end up  involved, heart too god forbid. And he can’t. _Cannot._ Because even though June sometimes looks at him like he’s the only damn man in the Commonwealth, he ain’t sure she knows what she’s asking. He doesn’t want to ruin this good thing, this easy thing.

He’s rolling all this shit around in his head so hard that he ain’t really paying attention to where he’s going and he runs into June. Literally smacks right into her back.  “The hell?” He straightens his hat back on his head. “The hell you doing, sunshine?” It only takes him a single glance to see he needs to change his tone.

She’s frozen, completely still, hands bunched into fists at her sides. Her bottom lip is trembling, jaw so tight that the veins in her necks pulse under her skin. “Where are we?” He’s never heard her voice sound this thin, this strained. “Where is this?”

Hancock glances around to get his bearings. He narrows his eyes, trying to figure out what the hell’s spooked her. “The airport, far as I can tell.”

“I’ve been here.”

“Not according to the pip boy, you ain’t.”

“No.” Her voice is like ice. “Before.”

He frowns. “Before?”

“The war.” Oh. Well, shit. Hancock’s tongue feels like it’s a million pounds. Useless, fucking useless. “I stood right here.” She lifts her hand up, palm out toward the river. “There used to be a wall here. Big windows. I was standing here. Right here.” She looks pleadingly at him, like she really wants him to understand, like she _needs_ him to understand. He tries to, tries so hard. “I was waiting for my sister here. The flight from New York landed at nine, but my sister couldn’t get a sitter for Shawn until eleven. So, I waited all morning. Just sat here, looking through these windows. The river was just the same.” She rests her fingers on her lips, the other hand still reaching out like she might pull away this world and reveal the old one, just through the sheer force of her will. “There was a building across that way. It’s not there anymore.” Her voice rises until she’s almost yelling. Hancock looks furtively around, worried her voice will carry and attract something nasty. “There were trees here. Big, tall trees.” She looks back at him, her whole body shaking. “There used to be trees all over. And people. Kids! I remember watching them playing out on the grass by the river.” Her voice gets high and shrill.  “Oh god, oh my fucking god.” She drops to her knees, digging desperately through her pack. “God. Fuck!”

Hancock’s on his knees in an instant, leaning down so their faces are level. “Take a minute, sister.” Her hands are rattling, her whole body stiff and shivering. “Hey.” She ignores him, rummaging through her pack, tossing thing out, not caring where they land. Hancock grabs her hands, pulling them roughly out of her pack. “Hey! Take a goddamn breath!”

June goes rigid, startled. She looks at him like she’s never seen him before in her life. He freezes now, worried that maybe, for the first time, she’s really noticing that he’s a ghoul. This is it, he thinks, she’s going to bolt.

But she doesn’t. She slumps a little, eyes fluttering closed. “I need some medex, please. I just want my heart to slow down a little, please, please.”

“Come on now, you know you don’t need to beg me.” He releases her hands and slides the pack closer. “Just give me a minute, alright?”

June glances around the airfield, holding her shoulders like she’s worried her arms are going to grow legs and walk off or something. “Sometimes I forget this is forever.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just gets to work, tapping the syringe until the liquid settles. “Want me to do it?” He nods toward her. “Hands are shaking pretty bad.” She nods, unzipping the top of her suit, exposing her shoulder. He runs his thumb over the vein under her collarbone. She’s so soft, god she’s so soft. He shakes his head, trying to focus. “Let’s get this over with, huh? Breathe in.” He positions the needle. “Breathe out.” He slips it in on the exhale. She only flinches a little. “There’s a girl.”

“I wasn’t here for a visit.”

“What’s that?”

She looks him right in the eyes, jaw still tight. “In Boston. I came to help with the kid.” She gulps. “My nephew, Shawn.”

“The one the institute’s got?” Now _this_ is a subject they rarely stumble onto.

She shrugs, frowning. “Maybe.” She looks down at the dirt between them. “Nora didn’t want a kid, really. It’s just….things were different then. It was kind of expected. And Nate,” She purses her lips like she’s tasting something rancid, “my brother in law. He really wanted them. Kids.” She trails off, looking out into the middle distance, out at nothing. “He fought in the war, you know. Like, the one before the big one.”

Hancock grunts, shifting a little where he’s sitting. “Heard of it.”

“Yeah, well it fucked him up. I guess I didn’t know him all that well, but he wasn’t a bad guy.” Hancock zips her suit back up, tosses the used needle into the brush. He’s trying to pay attention, but his nerves are going wild. “I only saw him once after he got back from the war.” She shudders. “He was so different.” She shudders again, fingers digging into her thighs. “He blew his fucking brains out in the front yard.” Hancock stifles a gasp. It ain't even close to the most shocking thing he's heard, but there's something about her delivery, about the scene she's setting up. And then there’s that laugh again. Sharp, nervous. Almost hysterical. “Literally in front of the neighbors. Took a shotgun and just,” she presses two fingers under her chin.” Hancock gulps. “Nora fucking lost it, you know? I mean how could you not?” She’s still not looking at him, still looking off at nothing. “She didn’t want the kid, didn’t want to live in some fucking suburb and now, all of a sudden, the only reason she agreed to any of that in the first place is splattered all over the grass.” Her breathing is erratic, really all over the fucking place, and without Hancock holding her shoulders steady she might have already collapsed.

“Jesus Christ.”

“She begged me to come to Boston, begged me to stay for a while. She just needed someone outside of Sanctuary Hills to be there, to remind her there was a life outside of this place.” She leans a little more into his hands. “It’s just so funny. We thought our lives were over. I felt like it was the end of the world when I left New York and then,” she laughs, “and then it really was.”

“You’re still here.” It’s all he can think to say.

“I know.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “I know, isn’t that crazy? Like I shouldn’t be. I should be dead. Every day I just think, okay this is it, my borrowed time is up. The universe is going to right itself.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

She looks up at him. “You don’t know that.”

“I sure fucking do.” Hancock squeezes her shoulders. “’Cause I’m not gonna fucking let anything happen to you. You understand me?” And there they are again, those sweet, morning eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!


	5. Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June takes Hancock to Sanctuary and he finds it doesn't quite live up to its name.

If June feels any kind of way about what happened on the airfield, she certainly ain’t talking to Hancock about it. And that’s just fine. Hancock’s perfectly happy to go back to their light banter, feeling a little like he poured part of his heart out for her and a lot like he hadn’t really meant to.

Which is probably why going to Sanctuary Hills with her feels a little risky. A little close to the bone. He probably should have figured they were going somewhere with history even before she tells him. She’s a little too comfortable, a little too familiar with the terrain. He tries not to be caught off guard when she stops just ahead of some rickety, makeshift bridge. She’s really fucking going at her bottom lip, chewing it almost bloody. Hell, he wishes she’d quit that. Her lips are too pretty for this shit. “So, uh, this is Sanctuary Hills.” Hancock squints at the settlement coming into view over the bluff. He took some medex this morning and it’s slowing him way the fuck down. He wracks his brain to try and remember. “My sister lived here.”

Oh. Right. Shit. He looks close at her, trying to figure out where she’s at. But hell, when June wants to put up a front, there ain’t no breaking it and her front is a mile high today. “You gonna be alright?”

“Yeah.” She sort of shrugs, looking kinda small when she does it, looking really young. “It’s cool. Just weird for me, I guess.”

He rolls his neck, the crack makes June flinch. “You wanna talk about it?” He doesn’t particularly want to, doesn’t really think he’d be much help honestly. But he would probably lay down and die if June asked him to. Fahrenheit would _kill_ him if he knew how goddamn besotted he’s gotten with his vaultie. And they haven’t even fucked, Christ. But he ain’t ever been one to dwell, doesn’t really want to worry about what he is or isn’t doing.

“Nah,” she starts across the bridge. “Just wanted to let you know.”

 

They’ve done the place up pretty nice from what he can see outside the gate. Big, tall walls with a few stuttering turrets up top, a couple settlers that look suspiciously like former raiders perched beside them, guns drawn. Some yahoo in a cowboy hat greets June on the other side of the gate, standing a little too close for Hancock’s liking. But she seems happy to see him and the man smiles brightly in his direction, extends an eager hand, so Hancock can’t be too pissy about the whole thing. He introduces himself as part of the Minutemen and Hancock side eyes her. “You a part of the minutemen, sunshine?”

She shrugs. “Why not.” He grins. Cheeky little thing.

 

The place is bustling, people and animals and cookfires that smell mighty nice, but June ain’t stopping. She seems determined to get somewhere quick and Hancock has to hurry his pace to keep up. The pooch falls back beside Hancock, waiting for him to scratch his ears. They’ve got a rapport now. Mostly.

June slows as they turn a corner. Most of the houses here are collapsed, just ruins, but Hancock is keeping an eye out, trying to figure out which one might have been hers. His thoughts are interrupted by a sudden metallic humming. One of those service robots is barreling toward them, but before Hancock can take out his gun, the bot does a little twirl around June, chattering excitedly. Hancock moves a little closer. The thing looks beat to hell, but its voice is high and cheery, the same clear, crisp British accent he’d heard on a hundred other Mister Handys. “Miss June!” It exclaims. “Welcome home. I believe the Missus will be home soon for supper.” It spins a little, delighted. “She and young Shawn went out for a stroll in this beautiful weather.” Hancock looks around. A radstorm is just finishing up,  that familiar zing still in the air. It’s shit weather, even for a ghoul.

June lays her hand lightly on the robot. “Sounds good, Codsworth. Thank you.”

The robot swivels to leave, but then catches sight of Hancock. “Oh! Is your friend joining us for dinner.”

June looks over her shoulder at Hancock. She’s got this look in his eyes that he cannot for the life of him figure out. “Yeah, I imagine he is.”

“Wonderful! I’ll set out another plate.” The robot whizzes off into one of the collapsed houses.

Hancock saunters up beside June and lowers his voice. “You wanna tell me what that was all about?”

“That’s Codsworth. My sister’s butler.” She’s evading the question, but he ain’t about to let it drop, keeps in step with her. 

“Yeah, figured that much out.”

“Don’t really know what you’re asking.”

He scowls at her. “Come on, now, sister. This beautiful weather? I could hear your Geiger counter singing from Goodneighbor.”

She scowls right back at him, but he can tell, by the way there’s a smile just in the smallest corner of her lips, that he’s winning. “His wires get crossed sometimes. He thinks he’s back, you know, before.”

“And you just lie to him?” It isn’t really an accusation, just a question, but he can almost see her hackles raising.

If he’s pissed her off, she’s decided not to let him see. Settles back into herself and just shrugs. “Sometimes I wish someone would lie to me.”

He bumps her shoulder. “I can lie to you all day long, sweet thing, what do you want me to lie to you about?” Her grin is almost bashful and he can’t help but grin back. Friendly, he reminds himself, just friendly. He sure wishes his cock would get with the program too. Hancock watches her sweet, little hips rock back and forth ahead of him, thankful he’s got this damn flag draped across his hips. He clears his throat. “So this was your spot huh?”

“What? This neighborhood?” He nods, looking around. The place looks like any other hellhole out in the wastes, if a little better fortified and lit, but Hancock tries to imagine what it would have been like when June first came here all those hundreds of years before. He imagines it was something like those old billboards scattered around the Commonwealth, all green grass and cookie cutter happy families. He can’t imagine June there, has a much better time placing her in the Commonwealth now and he tells her so. She laughs and stops at a circle of houses, scuffing her shoes on the crumbling asphalt. “Yeah, honestly it looks better now than it did then.”

“Sounds like it was a real trip.” He teases.

Her eyes flit from house to house and the corners of her lips twitch downward. “It was awful.” They stay silent for a few moments and then she grins, looking up at him. “Want me to introduce you to the neighbors?”

Hancock has his hands in the pockets of his great coat, leaning jauntily to one side. All of June’s shit is addictive, but he can’t get enough of her when she’s like this. Mischievous. Bratty. A little manic. Trouble. His trouble. She’s got that glint in her eye. “Yeah, sunshine, show me around.”

She twirls to her left and points to half-collapsed house with a big cartoon skeleton decal peeling off the splintering front door. “Mr. Baker. Divorced, two kids, I think? Did something with robotics.” She looks back at him. “Definitely on downers, but managed to show up at the front door every time my sister left the house.”

Hancock frowns. “He touch you?”

“Nah,” she flips her hair over her shoulder. “But not for lack of trying,”

Hancock stands a little closer to her, like the ghosts of these dead fucks might come out of the walls and make a pass at her. Might be fun to break a few hundred year old bones. “A real letch, huh?”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t even close to the worst asshole who lived here.” She spins around and Hancock follows. This house is still standing, but just barely, yellow paint chipping off the siding. The windows have been blown to smithereens. “Mr. Whitfield. Wife, grown children. That one,” she glances back at him, “a real fucking pervert.” Her face is totally neutral as she says it, suspiciously neutral. Hancock wants to take her aside, to call a timeout and ask what the fuck she means by that, but she’s too quick for him, heading down toward the row toward more houses. “Asshole.” She says, pointing to a pile of rubble. “Asshole.” Pointing now at a house across the way with no roof. June swivels again, this time gesturing toward a house that is nothing but concrete foundation. “Mrs. Able called the cops on me once. Said I was playing my records too loud.” She laughs, but it sounds far away, like she’s laughing from before the war. And maybe she is. Being here seems to have done something to her, but Hancock can’t tell if it’s good or not. “All of these people were such assholes. They were assholes to Nora. And, god, did they hate me. I was like the posterchild of everything they didn’t want. But man did their husbands hound me. Every chance they got.” She swallows hard. “Forbidden fruit and all that.”

Hancock spits on the ground. “Fuck ‘em.” June smiles at him. He looks back at the crumbling foundation and his chest tightens. This place is safe, he can see that, tactically sound. In the field beyond, he can see lush green, a few brahman roaming contently among corn and razorgrain. But he’s uneasy. There’s something wrong,. He just can’t put his finger on exactly what. Maybe it’s her. To anyone else she’s the picture of ease, but he knows her now, knows her probably better than she wants him to. She’s been more relaxed in a super mutant camp than she is here, standing on a walled-in street in a place she’s known for so long. June looks small and young and very, very afraid. And he feels impotent beside her.

 

Mama Murphy ain’t much of a cook, that’s for sure, but it’s nice to have some warm food. Nicer still to be sitting beside June in front of the oaring bonfire they’ve got going in the middle of the compound. It feels a little like she’s chosen him and, maybe he’s just imagining it, but a couple of the guys around the fire seem a little put out by seeing them together. It sure is good for the ego. And, hell, the beer is good and the fire is warm and the night is clear and cool. The stars are brilliant above them. Hancock can’t remember the last time he sat back and just looked up at them. They’re beautiful. Beside him, June shifts. _She’s_ beautiful. Christ, if Fahrenheit could see him right now. Eh, doesn’t matter. He takes another swig of beer and nudges her. “Hey sunshine, why don’t we call it a night.” June nods, letting him help her to her feet. Preston and a few others around the fire exchange glances, but June doesn’t seem to notice. Hancock certainly doesn’t give a shit.

 

Away from the fire, Sanctuary seems a little more desolate. Most of the settlers have already gone to bed, their shacks quiet and dark. The sounds from around the fire echo in the empty night, fading as they walk. “So what? We headed to your sister’s old house?”

“Hell no. I’ve got a spot on the other side of town.” He lets that settle, feeling a little unnerved again.

The house she’s picked is mostly caved in. June’s carved a narrow path through the rubble to the building’s sole intact room. The floor’s littered with magazines and half-melted candles. A dozen empty snack cake boxes are piled in one corner. She’s strung up a few bare bulbs. They keep the room almost too brightly lit.

He steers her toward the mattress in the corner of the room. She’s pushed it up against the one wall with no windows, as far from the door as possible. The place looks safe, private. Adequate. Hancock figures he’ll head back to the fire and have a few more beers. Hell, he’ll probably just crash out there under the stars. “Well alright, sister. I’ll see ya in the mornin’.”

“No!” She grabs hold of his shirt and he freezes. “Stay here.” And then, in a voice so small it almost breaks his heart. “Please.”

“Now what for, sunshine?”

“I don’t want to be alone.” She looks furtively around the room. “Not here.”

Hancock gulps. He ain’t totally sure he has it in him to be the gentleman he needs to be with her, not this close. Last thing he wants is for June to wake up to him humping her leg in his sleep or something. “You ain’t alone. You got the pooch.”

It’s stunning how quickly she recedes into herself. June practically recoils from him, eyes going distant. Her face is chillingly neutral. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Hey now, hold on just one minute.”

“No, I get it. You should probably-“

He drops down beside her on the mattress. “Hush. Just wanna make sure you know you ain’t need to try and please me, alright? You want me to stay, I’m here, but I can find my own bed just as easily. You understand me?”

“Yeah.” Her voice is low again, betraying nothing. Hancock lays on his back, hands folded primly over his chest. His body and brain are on two different tracks and the energy it’s taking to keep his damn cool makes him feel like he’s about to short-circuit.

He turns to look at her. Her string of lights cast strange shadows on her back. He clears his throat. “June?” She mumbles a response. “Why don’t you want to be alone here?” He knows she’s still awake, can tell by the way she stiffens at the question, but she says nothing. He rolls onto his side to face her. Even in the half-darkness, he can see that she’s shivering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading you guys!


	6. Jet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hancock fucks up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short update! I have a much longer chapter on the way (with smut!)

Watching her get fucked up that first time make him hard as a rock. Back in his stateroom for the night, back on his turf. They’re sitting too close for him to keep the ideas he’s been tossing around at bay. She’s on her shins, he with his arms around the back of the couch, sprawled out. When the jet hits she shudders like she’s cumming, eyelids fluttering, lips just parted. One for the memory den for damn sure. “That feel good, sunshine?”

         “Yeah.” She breathes it out with the last of the vaper.

         Hancock feels just a tinge of guilt, being the one to put that first inhaler to her lips. But she’s boneless in a second, crawling over to him to hit it again and that guilt makes a hasty retreat. She’s so beautiful in the low-light. And with the armor off, she looks so fragile. He likes that, he likes the way she’s looking at him too. Like he could be her armor. It’s good to see her relaxed, especially in his house, the seat of his little ragtag kingdom. He feels like a real provider and if that ain’t good for his cock, fucking nothing is.

 

         Somehow as the night progresses, she ends up straddling him. She does it mid-sentence, real casual. One minute she’s across the couch from him, the next she sliding her thighs over his, ruffling his shirt with her pretty little fingers. Hancock hopes she doesn’t hear him gulp. He is earning an Olympic medal in restraint tonight. Every muscle in his body tense because if he doesn’t keep himself in check, he might just roll over and mount her. He leans against the couch and lets his arms spread wide on the back of it again, trying to put just a little space between them. June smells like his soap and, fuck, that’s really doing it for him too. She takes his hat off him and puts it on her head, laughing softly to herself. She runs her fingers along his scalp, looking almost thoughtful. Hancock’s pretty much stopped breathing. He’s got some real rad burnt skin up there that she doesn’t seem to really notice and _that_ is blowing his fucking mind. “Drugs are different now.”

         His ruined lips twitch. Keep your cool, Hancock. “How so?”

         “These feel like medicine. Or, I don’t know. They feel like they’re not supposed to be for fun.” She laughs quietly to herself, eyes glassy. “Like we’re using them wrong.”

         “And how did they used to feel, huh sunshine?”

         June frowns, eyes a little unfocused. Sometimes she gets twitchy when he asks about before. Hancock half expects her to deflect, but the jet’s loosened her tongue. “Different, I don’t know. They used to be plants. Or, like, some of them did, I guess.” She cocks her head, eyes still faraway. “You would have liked weed, I think. Yeah, you would have liked it a lot.”

         Hancock digs his fingers into the back of the couch to stop himself from reaching up and grabbing her hips. God, he bets she’s wet, knows jet does that to women sometimes, bets he could just slip inside her. He thinks she must look fucking magnificent when she cums. He rolls his shoulders to try and keep his cool. “Yeah, why’s that?”

         “It makes you feel real good.”

         “And these ain’t?”

         “Oh, sure.” She shifts her hips in his lap and he tuts at her, a little freaked that she’ll feel the way his cock has been barking to get out of his pants for the better part of an hour. “You know what?” Hancock parts his lips in anticipation, muscles so tight they might snap. “I bet you could make me feel real good too.”

         He about chokes. Sure, they’ve been flirting. Sure, he’s beaten off to the fantasy of her on her knees in front of him more times than he can count. But to actually fuck? To do that dirty deed with this pretty pre-war relic? There ain’t no way. June’s too high, too fucked up That’s the only motherfucking explanation for why this sweet thing would even consider wanting his gnarled ass between her legs. And he really is trying to be a good boy,  a gentlemen even. He tries his best to ignore the way every cell in his irradiated fucking body is just howling. Hancock shifts underneath her, trying to get a little more leverage. “Now hold on there.” Hancock is honestly fucking stunning himself with this level of restraint and more than a few voices in his head are cussing him right out.  “You, sunshine, are thoroughly and beautifully fucked up and I ain’t interested in taking advantage.” June’s eyes snap back, suddenly lucid and hard. Hancock takes her by both wrists and, with every ounce of self-control he’s got, dislodges her from his lap. “Let’s get you to bed, huh. The sun’s almost coming up.”

         “Whatever you want, Mayor Hancock.” Her voice is that high, flirty little thing she used to use when they first met. When she didn’t trust him. She’s hiding in plain sight and he’d forgotten this about her, this shell she’s got. He misses her immediately, feels like a goddamn bastard in every which way. The way she’s looking at him feels like heartbreak. Hancock wants to kiss her now, more than maybe he ever has. He thinks it might not be so bad to fuck like this after all, all hopped up. He could be real gentle, make her cum slow and soft on his bed. Yeah, he could do that. Wouldn’t even have to fuck her, could just use his fingers. Shit, he bets he could make her fucking shake with just a coupla his fingers. But she’s already yanked herself away from him, holding herself near the door the stairs.

         He crosses the room in a few, quick strides, and June flinches like he’s feral. “Come on now, Junie.”

         “No, you’re right.” She’s coming down from the jet now, shaking a little. “I should go.”

         He snaps to attention. “Whatcha mean? Where to? This place is practically as much yours as mine.”

         June glances around the state room like she’s seeing it for the first time. She’s hugging herself like a little kid. “No, I’ll go.” Her eyes are boring through him, just swirling. Her voice is almost poisonous when she speaks next. “Don’t want to tempt you into taking advantage.”

 

         Hancock watches her from the balcony, hitting one pump of jet after the other until his limbs are numb and the sky is pulsing in kaleidoscope patterns. He needs to be out of his fucking mind to even try to get any goddamn sleep tonight. June’s headed down the alleyway toward the Rexford, still holding herself like she might crumble to pieces. He should be the one holding her together. It’s so cold out tonight, a real chill in the air and he knows damn well the Rexford never did repair their windows. She’s gonna be shivering all night. Hancock should run after her. He should, but he doesn’t. He only ever runs away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Memories*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hancock gets to know June better and finally makes his move, but June’s insecurities send her running.
> 
> AKA two hurt people have intense sex and can't really handle it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've taken a fair amount of liberties with the Sole Survivor's origin story and also with how memory loungers work lol whoops

The memory den wasn’t made for this, Hancock thinks, for this level of suffering. Junie’s agreed to it because Valentine said it was necessary, because everybody seems to think she’s gotta, but she looks like she’d rather be just about anywhere else. Hancock gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before Irma beckons for her. She looks back at him and smiles, touches him briefly on the arm.

Despite the scenery, it’s a relief to know they’re all good again. It’d been almost a month since the last time he’d seen her, that night in the Statehouse when she’d offered herself up to him on a platter. He’d headed over to the Rexford the afternoon afterwith some snack cakes and mutfruit to make the beginnings of an apology and found that she and the pooch had high tailed it out of town just before dawn. Whoo boy, had he fucked that up. He’d learned his goddamn lesson about playacting the kind of good boy he ain’t, that’s for sure. Figured he might never see her again. Worked that particularly ugly feeling out of a system with a half dozen good citizens of Goodneighbor in his bed or on the wrong end of his fists and enough bourbon to close the Third Rail. So imagine his surprise when she shows back up at his doorstep, Piper and Valentine in tow. Pooch too, of course. Hancock figured he might try to play it cool and distant, feel out where she was, give her the opportunity to be cold with him if she wants to. But she wasn’t having none of that, came up to him smiling and preening and, hell, he ain’t ever been so relieved in his damn life. But she didn’t come to Goodneighbor just to see him, much as he’d like to pretend she did. And now here they are, crowded into Irma’s place, all somber as hell.

Shit, Hancock has half a mind to put the kibosh on these proceedings right damn now and whisk June off the Third Rail. Apologize the best way he knows how and see if, a little more sober, June still wants him between those pretty thighs of hers. But she’s already being strapped in to the memory lounger and Hancock lights a cigarette, bouncing his elbows on his knees.

The machine winds up, the screen Dr. Amani’s set up flickers a little and then, like one of those old movies, there they are. In the memory, June’s wearing some sweet little sundress, fabric so thin he can see the outline of her nipples. Hancock leans forward in his seat to get a better look. Two stiffs in helmets are dragging her along some rocky pathway and she’s kicking those long, tan legs like a wild animal. Hancock has to remind himself that he’s watching the end of the world and not some spank flick. He’s so focused on how damn pretty June looks that it takes him a minute before he realizes how different the world is in her memory. It puts him on edge, actually, the way the trees are so full, how pristine the buildings are. He doesn’t want to look too long.

It’s easy not too, though, because June is losing her damn mind on these two soldiers. Making a hell of a scene. She doesn’t have a chance for shit against them, but she’s spitting and shouting like a real scrapper. It ain’t no use, though, the soldiers pull her up onto some big metal platform like she weighs nothing. There’s a bunch of square-looking folk just standing around looking like they all want to cry. They seem especially spooked by June’s appearance and Hancock narrows his eyes, trying to pick out the ones she told him about in Sanctuary. It’s a pretty useless exercise.

June balls her hands into fists and he can tell she’s about to start flipping shit all over again when the sound starts. It’s deafening, even in Irma’s little room. Like something being ripped right out of the ground, something heavy falling but nothing like that, worse than any of that, and then the sun does this funny little woosh and, all of a sudden, it’s brighter than it should be.

Hancock’s stomach drops with hers. He’s open mouthed in horror just like June is in the memory. The asshole’s who’ve dragged her to the platform just drop her, fucking gobsmacked like the rest of them. June scrambles to her feet and over to a woman at the center of the metal platform. Her sister, Hancock realizes. Nora. June told him once that they didn’t have the same dad and Hancock can see that pretty clearly. If Junie is all willowy, wispy trouble, her sister looks sturdy and reliable. They both have those big, pretty lips and smattering of freckles, but Nora’s a lot older and her face is a lot more severe. Sharper features that look like they’ve been worn down with worry. She’s got mousy brown hair that she keeps short and neat. Cuts a real professional visage that June, with her golden curls can’t quit manage. The baby’s sort of an afterthought, far as he can tell, clutched a little too loosely in her arms. It’s probably squalling, the way it’s face is all red and twisted, but nothing is making a dent in the sound that’s coming off that bright light in the distance.

June’s knees seem to sort of give and she clutches her sister’s arm, knuckles white from the pressure. The bomb is churning the world, tilling houses and trees and roads up as it rolls toward them. Hancock nearly bolts from the room. It’s awful, terrifying. June shuts her eyes and covers her ears with her hands and then she starts to scream. She screams as the platform descends, screams as the world around her turns to ash. Hancock can’t stand to look anymore, tips the brim of his hat down and shut his eyes.

When he opens them again, the memory’s quieter. They’re in the vault. He can tell even though he’s never seen the inside of one. It’s a lonely quiet in there.

“You gonna behave now, sweetheart?” One of the soldiers shoves past her. June’s stopped screaming. She’s holding herself tight, blinking like she’s trying to wake herself up from a terrible dream. They aren’t trying to restrain her anymore. It’s pretty damn clear to everyone that this metal sink trap was a one-way trip.

“Go fuck yourself.” Her voice is thin and quiet, doesn’t have any bite anymore.

The man chuckles and nudges another guy in a white coat. “Watch out, you got a real fiery one over there.” The white-coated man laughs back and Hancock decides he’d fuck them both up if he ever got the chance. When he remembers that they’re all probably 200 years dead, he spits on the ground. Rest in hell, assholes.

June seems to get her bearings and pulls her sister back, away from the crowd. “We can’t stay here.” She hisses.

Her sister has this blank ass look on her face. She’s rocking the baby a little too hard, not even looking at him. “We don’t have a lot of options, June.”

“You don’t think this is weird? These people. Do you not see how they’re looking at us?” June sweeps her hand toward the metal staircase where a few of the soldiers and white coats are standing. Hancock thinks they _do_ look a little gleeful for the end of the world.

“I just watched my home get nuked, June. Boston. Is. Gone. So maybe if you could, for one singular minute, think of anything past your own nose I would appreciate it.”

June recoils like she’s been hit, but then doubles down, voice rising. “ _You_ were the one who thought this VaultTec shit was fishy. You were telling me this fucking morning that-“

“That’s enough.” June’s sis has the voice of a damn school marm and once she’s said it, June’s mouth slams shut. “That’s enough, June. You’ve thrown your tantrum. You’re done.” June recoils. “I’m going to speak with these doctors and I’m going to try and protect you and Shaun, whether you want me to or not. “

June stays frozen as her sister walks away, just watches her go.. The shaft they’d come down is starting to spin and Hancock can feel her rising panic in his own chest. The rest of the people who’d come down with her are just standing around shaking and pissing themselves and Hancock gets the distinct impression that June is about to do something crazy. It’s a look in her eyes that he recognizes. Like a cornered animal. He remembers that first night at the Statehouse with her. She’d told him they’d had to strap her into the cryo pod and it’s then it dawns on him that he’s about to see her last stand.

The memory goes sort of wavy, staticky, and Hancock realizes that here and now June is trying to wrestle her way out of the memory lounger. It makes a loud, sickening crack as she pries herself out of it, pulling the nodes off her head. She’s cussing like a raider, but shaking too much to stand and she tumbles to the floor. Hancock’s on her in a second, pulling her up onto his lap and keeping her steady. She holds tight onto him, arms wrapped around his neck, and he can just feel her shivering hard against him. ‘Alright, that’s enough.” His own voice sounds small and echo-y, like he’s back in the vault with her. Irma and the doc are hovering, even Kent’s stuck his head out to get a better look, so he uses his Mayoral voice and everybody jumps. “I said that’s enough. Everybody out.”

Valentine crouches down where the two of them are sitting, unperturbed as usual. “You alright, kid?”

“Fuck no, I’m not alright.” June’s shaking a little less, but she’s still got her hands tight around Hancock, her head tucked in the crook of his neck like she’s breathing him in. Hancock can’t remember the last time he was held onto like this, can’t remember if he’s _ever_ been held onto like this.

He smooths June’s hair back a little, trying to soothe her. He cannot fucking believe she’s letting him do this after disappearing for all those weeks and he tries to be good. “Let’s get a drink in you, huh. Let’s get you fixed up.”

“Yeah, okay.” She lets him help her to her feet, but she doesn’t let go of him, leans against him as they walk. “Hancock, I’m sorry.”

“Come on now, for what?” He puts his arm around her as they make their way to the door. Irma raises an eyebrow at him, but he just tips his hat in her direction.

“For bailing. I high-tailed it out of here, I don’t even know why. I didn’t say goodbye. I mean to, I just…”

“Shit, sugar, don’t you worry your pretty head about it alright. I was the one who wasn’t being gentlemanly.” The night is cool, crisp. Doesn’t even smell too much like smoke or rads. It’s a damn nice night. “You’re here now and that’s all that matters.” Valentine sidles up to them, hands in the pocket of his trench coat, cigarette hanging from his metal lip. Hancock glances in his direction.“You get what you needed?’

He shakes his head. “I can’t for the life of me figure out what the connection is.” His exposed hand creaks as he takes a few long puffs. “I don’t understand why the Institute would want to be so sure she was in the vault. Common knowledge says it didn’t even exist before the war. But it must have. There’s no other explanation.”

June’s quieter than normal and Hancock rubs her arms. “That’s alright. We’ll figure it out. Don’t need to do a thing about it tonight.”

A few mentats and a pack of cigarettes later, she’s settled. Junie’s her old self, cracking jokes, dancing in that slow, rocking way that has the whole bar watching her. Except she isn’t really her old self. Her jaw is tight and her cloudy eyes haven’t left him all night. He’s pulled taut enough to snap by the time she settles eventually at his table near the stage. She lets Hancock pour her a drink and busies herself with people watching. Anyone else might look at her and think she’s bored, zoned out, but Hancock knows she’s listening, thinking so hard that she’s doing a real number chewing on her bottom lip. He wants to ask her what’s going on in that pretty head of hers, but it ain’t the right place, not here in the middle of the bar. They’ve all had to shake off the residue of what they saw in the Memory Den.

Beside him, Piper’s dozing off in her chair. Hancock caps his bottle of bourbon and leans his elbows on the table. “Getting late, huh? Let me puts you guys up in the Rexford. Compliments of the mayor.”

“Sounds mighty nice to me.” Valentine ashes his cigarette and nudges Piper awake. He whispers something to her and then helps her up. Valentine nods toward June. “See you up there kid?”

“Yeah, yeah. Get some sleep.” June lights another cigarette and crosses her legs in her chair. Those long, wild limbs again. “Rexford for me too then?”

Hancock licks his ruined lips. “Whatever you want, sunshine.”

June looks off in Magnolia’s direction, but Hancock knows better. She’s thinking, looking right through the wall. He’s about to say something snappy to try and clear the heavy air that’s sitting between them now, when her eyes snap back to him. “Take me home, Hancock.”

He gulps. There’s no protocol for this in the Commonwealth, no rulebook he can abide by or break. His heart is slamming in his chest and all the blood that’s rushed to his cock and his throbbing pulse has left brain wanting. “And where’s that, sweetheart?” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it. That old snarky standby.

The way her face falls is devastating. “Nowhere.” She stands, ashing her cigarette, and slips gracefully through the dwindling bar crowd.

He up in an instant, following her. He takes her quickly by the arm and pulls her back toward him. She hisses like an angry cat, and tries to wriggle out of his grasp, but he’s stronger. “Hey, that’s enough of that, you hear?” She gulps. “Come one home, Junie.”

“Don’t want to intrude on your night, Hancock.” She glances over at one of the women Hancock bought a drink for at the start of the night. Pretty scavver with a shaved head, great rack. A steady, if predictable fuck. “I’m sure you already have plans.”

“I sure don’t. Not when you’re on the menu.”

“Oh, so I’m on the menu then?”

Hancock leans close to her ear, practically growling. “Aren’t you?” She takes a deep, shuddering breath and he leans back. “Let me take care of you, June. You don’t got to do it all on your own.” Her eyes shimmer, lips trembling.

         She looks him straight on. “You don’t know I need.”

         There’s been something unsaid between them for months. Flirty, yeah, but something else too. The way she looks at him after he’s killed someone, the way she preens when he takes over, takes charge. “I think I do, sunshine, I think I do.”

 

         He lays her on her back, palm firmly between her tits. She’s got a body like he ain’t never seen; smooth and tight and so goddamn pretty. Her hair is like a golden halo around her head on his pillow. _His_ pillow. Hancock sits back on his haunches and whistles. “Shit, don’t got enough time in the world to do all the things I wanna do to you.” Joni shudders again, all down her body, and cants her hips toward him. “I haven’t barely touched you and you are rutting like a bitch in heat, aren’t ya?” She’s watching him, eyes locked with this and rocks her hips again. “You understand what this is, don’t you?” He’d laid out his ground rules on the walk back to the Statehouse. She’d agreed, shivering with anticipation, but sort of absently too and even though every cell in his body is screaming, he pauses, waiting for her answer. She nods, reaching between her legs for him. He leans out of her grasp. “You know I like to hear that pretty voice of yours.”

         “Yes, please.”

         “Please? Well ain’t that polite.” He lifts up one of her legs and presses a kiss to her ankle. “Such a sweet girl.” His eyes go dark, his voice low. “ _My_ sweet girl.” Her thighs twitch. Hancock leans down and kisses her between her hip bones. It’s wild, having her here. Naked and pliable. Wanting and desperate. He wants, more than anything in this moment, to do right by her. To finally take care of her that was he’s been jonesing to since day one. He waits a few beats until little droplets of perspiration slip down the taut plane of her stomach, until she’s breathing erratically. He walks his hand up and rubs his thumb along her bottom lip. “Easy, doll. You’re gonna hyperventilate if you keep breathing like that.” He taps her cheek just hard enough with his fingers to get her attention. “Breathe, sunshine, breathe. Or you ain’t gonna get a thing from me.”  June sucks in a ragged breath and when it steadies again, Hancock kisses her between her tits. He can feel her heart fluttering under his touch and he growls. “Get on your hands and knees”

         She scrambles to follow his direction, a little unsteady, but she manages. Her ass looks so damn good like this he can barely fucking stand it. And even in the low light of his room, he can see how wet she is. Her panties are stuck to her pussy lips. He drags his thumb down the seam of her and she jolts, crying out. “Look at you. What a sensitive little girl you are.” He swats her hard on one ass cheek. “But you’re gonna have to wait your fucking turn.”

 

         She’s got welts by the time he’s done with her. All up and down her thighs, ass painted with his handprints. June’s purring like a goddamn cat, fucking trembling. And she’s a real natural. He told her to keep her hands behind her back and no matter how hard he laid into that sweet ass, she held them obediently together. His brain is spinning with all the games they could play, all the things he could do to her. And still, he feels a little numb, still can’t believe it’s fucking June in his bed, June spread for him. Hancock walks his fingers up her thighs. She’s sticky, all warm and wet, and when he blows against her bare pussy, she shudders. “Man, you are wanting, ain’t ya?”

         “Please, please Hancock.”

         “It’s John.”

         She looks back at him, doe-eyed. “J-john.”

         “Well I’ll be, doesn’t my name sound so good on those lips.”

         She squirms under his touch. “Please, please, fuck me, please.”

         “Oh-ho-ho. I don’t think so, baby girl. You know how long I’ve been thinking ‘bout shit like this? Since the first moment I saw you in my town.” He kisses her pussy, just lightly. Her thighs convulse in his hands. She’s so wound up and man if that ain’t doing just about everything for him.  “I am gonna take my damn time.”

 

         She’s as beautiful when she cums as he imagined she would be. Radiant, really. For as noisy and bossy as she’s been, she’s goes oddly silent when it washes over her, rigid, and then everything releases. Her “oh” is so soft, so warm, god Hancock can barely stand it. He ain’t ever felt like this with a woman and it doesn’t scare him like he expects it would. Cumming does something to her. She pulls him close, pulls him right up between her legs.

         They don’t fuck like they’ve been playing. They fuck gentle, slow. She’s on her back, he cradled by her thighs. They’re chest to chest, her holding him so tight he can’t pull all the way out of her, fucks her deep and steady. It’s been a long time since he’s fucked like this and he sure as hell hasn’t had a girl kissing on him like she is, not since he went ghoul. June kisses his neck, his jaw, the spot where his nose should be. When she comes again, it's almost sweet, just a quiet shuddering against him. She pulls him over with her.

They lay like that for a long while, in each other’s arms. It’s only when she presses her face against his neck that he realizes she’s crying big, silent tears. He coos at her, stroking her hair. That seems to have the opposite effect and she starts sniffling, “Hey.” He kisses her nose, her lips. “I got ya, sunshine, I got ya.”

She wriggles out from under him. “I just need some air.” She pulls her suit on in a quick, fluid motion.

Hancock frowns. “Was it too much?”

“What? No, god no. I just…I just need a little air.” She looks back at him, eyes cloudier than he remembers them being. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

Hancock knows before she’s even out the door that she’s bolting. He’s done it enough times that he can just sense it. She ain’t coming back. If it’s forever or just a little while, he can’t say but it hurts in ways shit like this isn’t supposed to hurt him. Not anymore. He wanders over and uncorks a bottle of wine. She’s probably in view, but he can’t bring himself to go out onto the balcony and watch her leave. It was nice, he thinks, nice while it lasted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!


	8. Answers*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June comes back and the two of them try to figure things out.

         She shows up two months later, looking like a lost dog. Alone again. Full of rads again. Hancock ain’t so gentle about taking care of her this time.

 

         He strips her down while the bath runs. She’s cold to the touch and Hancock tries to figure out where the hell she’s been. They don’t really say anything. They don’t need to. He tests the water twice to make sure it ain’t gonna burn her and then leads her to the bath. June doesn’t fight him, lets him scrub her down in the tub. She’s got more bruises than unblemished skin at this point and Hancock is dying to ask her what the shit happened, but he knows better than that by now. She won’t tell him a damn thing. “Lean back,” He says quietly when he’s soaped up her hair. She lets him pull her back into the water, eyelids fluttering closed when he starts to massage her scalp.

“Thank you.” It’s barely a whisper.

“It ain’t nothing.” She sits sullenly in the bathwater. It's a little cloudy now with all the dirt and grime he’s got off her.

 

Hancock has Daisy bring over something for her to wear while the vault suit is drying. The plaid shirt she scrounges up is a little big on June, hangs almost to her bare knees and it makes her look even smaller curled into one of his chairs. He’s sober as the day he was born, trying to keep his cool, trying to think straight. After a long while of silence, Hancock leans forward, elbows on his knees, and points to the food he’s had one of his boys whip up. “Eat.” Her nose twitches. She doesn’t move. “Fucking eat, June, I swear to god.”

“I’m nauseous.”

“Then we’ll get some medex in you, but you gotta eat before we start dosing you with radaway.” She looks away. “So help me god I will tie you down and force this food down your gullet if I have to.” She frowns but starts to pick at the plate. “How the hell you get so pumped full of rads anyway?”

“I was in the glowing sea.”

He pauses and takes a closer look at her, like she's gotta be fucking kidding him. But she isn’t joking, not with the way she’s holding herself like that. “Now why the hell would you do something like that?”

She exhales raggedly. “I think the institute is trying to kill me, or, I don’t know, something worse.”

Hancock ain’t sure if he can get goosebumps anymore, but it sure feels like they’re racing up his arms. But he can tell by the way she’s looking at him that he needs to keep his cool. “Ain’t no institute in Goodneighbor, sunshine.

“I know. That’s why I came back.” She shakes her head. “No, that’s not the only reason I came back.” She looks up almost shyly at him. “I came back for you.”

Hancock’s stomach lurches. “Well that is mighty flattering, but I think we gotta clear the air first, don’t you?” June nods but looks away. “You wanna tell me what the fuck happened? Between us.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I ain’t asking for an apology, I’m asking for you to tell me what is going on in that damn head of yours right now.”

“I know I fucked up.”

“Quit putting words in my mouth. You didn’t do shit. I just want to know what spooked you so bad. Hell, you didn’t even take the time to clean up the mess I left between your legs before you went running out my door.” June snorts at the crass joke. Hancock smiles. “There she is. Come on, sister, yell at me for that.”

She doesn’t. Her face falls. “Hancock?”

“Yeah, sunshine?”

“Why do you like me?” It sounds like she’s holding back tears.

He scowls. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you kidding me, June? You have half the Commonwealth nipping at your heels, trying to get a taste.”

June frowns. “So it’s that then.” She gets up and starts toward where her suit is hanging. “It’s because you wanted to fuck me.”

Hancock scrambles off the couch and grabs hold of June’s arm. “It ain’t that and you damn well know it ain’t that.”

‘Don’t tell me what I know.” June hisses at him. “You wouldn’t be the first man to fuck me over.”

“You think I’m trying to fuck you over, doll?”

June pulls out of his grasp but stays planted where she is. “Why else would you spend any time with me at all? I just don’t understand. I show up, out of the blue, and all the drinks are on the house. I don’t have to pay for the hotel here. I get discounts at the shops.” He voice is getting loud again like it did that day out at the airport. “Because of you.”

Hancock’s sort of stunned. He looks hard of her. “Yeah, doll.”

“Why did you do that?”

“What, all those months ago? Hell, June, I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re even asking me.”

She’s crying now, just quietly, shaking almost imperceptibly.  “I just want to know when you’re gonna be done with me?”

“Done with you?”

“When you’re gonna get bored and stop letting me come here.”

“I ain’t planning on ever not letting you in here, June. What the hell are you even talking about? I…” He trails off. It’s dawning on him slowly. Everything falling neatly into place. “Is this why you left?”

She goes rigid, voice tight. “I thought you’d gotten what you wanted. I wanted to save you the trouble of…” She looks away from him, wiping away her tears almost violently.

“You think I followed you around the ass end of nowhere for months because I wanted to fuck you?” June just stands there, lips trembling. “June, are you out of your damn mind?” He approaches her slowly like she might bolt all over again. Slowly, so slowly he reaches up to brush her hair behind her ears. “I hear things alright. Got my grubby fingers in a lot of pots in this damn city. I know there’s people in the Commonwealth who have you pulled in all kinds of directions. People who are around because of what you can do for them. And I know,” he pauses, trying to figure out the best way to word it,” I know that your life before all this wasn’t sunshine and roses either.” She opens her mouth to argue, but he holds up a hand to shush her. “You don’t gotta tell me. I may just be a junkie ghoul, but I listen, alright? I can read between the lines.” She’s stopped crying, but her eyes are watery, tears threatening to spill again. “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t have a horse in this race. I ain’t asking you to get on your knees for some settlement in the middle of nowhere or lead some bot back home.” Her eyes fly up to meet his. “Yeah, I know about all that. And it don’t matter to me. I’m here, right now, with you, because I give a damn about y _ou_. Because I think the Commonwealth is better because you’re in it. And because I like you. And that’s it. Simple as that.” He grins. “I’m a simple man.” The corners of June’s mouth tick up, just slightly. When she looks back at him, her face is a little softer. “But you already know that.”

“I’m sorry I bailed.”

         “I said I wasn’t asking for an apology.”

          “I’m so scared.” It comes out of her mouth so quickly he’s sure she didn’t mean to say it out loud. She holds herself a little tighter. “I have all these people around me, all the time, but I’m so lonely.”

         “I’m right here, doll. I’ll keep you safe.”

         “I know.” The next thing she says comes out with the same rush of confessional air as the first. “And I don’t feel lonely when I’m with you.” Hancock’s heart jumps. “Can I stay here? Just for a little while.”

         “You can stay here as long as you like, you know that.” She exhales and falls into him, holding tight on his greatcoat, heaving against his chest.”

         She nuzzles into his neck, breathing still jagged. “Can we try again?”

Even with all those bruises, June’s still just as pretty as he remembers. Yeah she’s got a few new scars, yeah the downy hair between her legs is a little wilder than the last time, but she is painfully beautiful. Hancock whistles, standing at the edge of the bed watching her. She’s cross-legged on the sheets and he can just barely see the glistening, pink lips of her pussy. “You’re a sight.”

         June leans back, pushing her tits out. “I’m impatient.”

         Hancock chuckles. “Now that is just too bad because after the stunt you pulled the last time I got you naked, I ain’t about to let you take charge.” She licks her lips. “Now be a good girl for me, huh?” She huffs. “That what you think a good girl does?”

         “You should spank me.” She says, breathless.

         “And why’s that, doll?” He presses her slowly back onto the bed, the mattress groaning a little when he joins her on it.

         “Because I’ve been bad.”

         “No,” he strokes her flank. “No, you haven’t. Stop telling yourself that you have.” She frowns. “You don’t gotta punish yourself, June, but if you insist on getting punished, let me be the one to do it.” He waits, lets it sink in. “That sound alright to you?”

         “Yeah.”

“If I’m the one who decides when you get punished then tonight ain’t it.” She nods, lip trapped between her teeth. “Good.” He slips a finger inside of her, just gently. She exhales, like it’s all she’s been waiting for, like all she needed was that touch all along. His thumb makes shallow little circles on her clit and she furrows her brow, like she’s focusing hard on something. “Let it go.” He adds another finger, then slides his free hand up her stomach. Hancock takes a nipple between his fingers, pinching until she gasps. “Let it go, June.” She looks up at him with those morning eyes again, her breathing slow and soft. She rolls her free nipple between her fingers and moans. “Ain’t that a pretty sight.”

“I love your voice.” She says, breathy.

“Yeah? You like my big mouth?” He crooks his fingers inside of her and she gasps. “I could talk all night, baby girl, especially to you.” She sighs, rolling her hips toward him, trying to get more pressure on her clit. Hancock obliges her, bearing down hard. She yelps, reaching out for him, grasping at his forearm. “I’m not gonna fuck you this time.”

‘Why?”

“Because I wanna see you cum on my fingers. I want to see you cum until you’re begging me to stop, until you can’t stand it. Think you could do that for me?”

“I’d do anything for you.” Hancock’s throat constricts. His heart feels too big for his body.

 

Hancock’s disoriented when he wakes up. The sheets next to him are still a little damp and he remembers that she’s here. Or that she was here. He flips around to get more comfortable, trying to push down the dark feelings rising up in him when he hears a little sigh. Hancock freezes and then, timidly, reaches out. She’s there beside him in bed. He wants to laugh, full-throated and fucking delighted, but he knows the noise will wake her. He ain’t ever seen her look this peaceful, curled up in his sheets, breathing softly, easily. He wishes he knew what convinced her to stay, what made her feel like she could. Maybe one day he’ll ask her. Maybe one day he’ll get that chance. Hancock tucks the blankets up around her and pulls her back against his chest. She moans, searching in her sleep for the arm he has around her, holds it tightly when she finds it. This feels alright. Feels like something he could get used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!


	9. Librarian*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hancock and June have fallen into a routine, but they still can't bare themselves to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man guys. Sorry it’s been such a minute. I’m still trying to work through some blocks in the plot with this fic, but smut is always at the front of my mind, so here you go.

“You look good like that.” June turns back to look at him, her hair falling in waves down her back. She’s breathing hard, jaw tight. “We’ll have to do this more often. Parade you around town, huh? Show everyone exactly who you belong to.” Her breathing has gone a little ragged, a little shallow. She’s on her knees, thighs tied together. Hancock tied her arms too, right at the elbow, and she’s leaning heavily on them now, ass high up in the air. Hancock crouches to test the tightness of the rope and, when he’s satisfied it ain’t cutting off anything vital, he nudges her with the heavy tip of his boot. Just hard enough to send her rocking, hard enough to hurt. June balls her hands into tight fists, but when he leans down to kiss the spot where he’d kicked, she shudders with pleasure. June likes mean if he follows it with sweetness.

Hancock stands and stretches, working out a few kinks in his shoulders. A soft afternoon light is coming in through the few windows that haven’t been boarded up. Above them, that big ornate metal cage is creaking, hanging precariously from the tall, domed ceiling. A chandelier, June called it. Fancy stuff for fancy people. She’d explained the finer points of the library system as they’d dodged mutant grenades, backs pressed hard against the sandbags some poor, unlucky sap had tried to turn into cover. The library is quiet now. The creaking and June shifting impatiently on the floor are the only sounds.  

Hancock pads over to the door to check how the lock’s holding. Well enough, he decides, though the damn door would splinter if anyone even put a half assed effort into getting it open. It occurs to him then that this is possibly his worst idea yet. They’ve just cleared the damn place of a whole nest of mutants. Their corpses still warm in the other room. They really should have cleared out, but when they were scavving, Hancock’d found a couple skeins of rope in some closet and his whole brain lit up. He’d tossed them casually to June, a mischievous glint in his eye. She’d done that sweet little thing she does, taking her tongue between her teeth. He’d advanced on her like a damn predator after that.

It occurs to him too, as he stalks around her bound body, that he’s really supposed to be the adult here. That he’s the one who’s supposed to say they probably shouldn’t be fucking in a super mutant nest, probably shouldn’t be exposing themselves like this. She’s just as damn impulsive as he is, that’s the problem, just as much of a goddamn hedonist. A real match made in heaven. But she’s young, so young, and the Commonwealth is still so new to her. He figures he ain’t being a very good protector, tying her up in a place like this, letting his cock take the reins. He rolls his neck and, as he does, the light catches on June’s pussy. She’s filthy wet all down her thighs. It is fucking _debauched_ and he reminds himself that being responsible ain’t really his speed.

Her whine makes him grin. She’s wriggling like a fussy child, impatient written all over that sweet body of hers. “I thought I told you to be quiet.” She goes rigid. “You’re not being a very good girl, are you? Maybe I should just leave you here, huh? If you’re gonna be such a bad girl. Let the super mutants sort you out.” She shudders and he saunters around to get a good look at her face, checking to see if that was too far. Her eyes are dark, all pupil, jaw a little slack. She’s looking at him like a young animal. Sweet and innocent and in so much goddamn danger. When he takes her jaw in his hand, she preens like a cat. Hancock drops her so quickly she has to scramble to stay upright.

His joints crack a little when he settles down on the hard marble floor in front of where she’s kneeling. They left Goodneighbor about a month ago and have been riding hard ever since. Sleeping wherever they can find shelter, really roughing it. They’d scrounged up a halfway decent shower the morning before in the basement of Police Precinct 8, but June had been so rattled by what they’d found there for ole Nicky that she didn’t seem like she much enjoyed it. She deserves to work out a little tension.

Hancock wishes they were in Goodneighbor, wishes that he could watch her as she soaked in his bathtub like that prettiest little mermaid he’s ever even dreamed of. But they ain’t and Hancock has to admit that watching her bound up in this scene of near total destruction is really doing something for him.

Hancock lights a cigarette and lets it burn a while. Lets the smoke drift skyward. She’s watching it closely, eyes glued to its smoldering tip. He waves it dangerously in front of her. “How bad do you want to hurt sweet thing?” Her eyes get wide, bottom lip twitching as she watches the glowing end sway back and forth. He can tell she’s trying to decide. He’s trying to decide too. Not sure if he wants to burn her like he used to with a couple raider chicks who’d blow into town every so often looking for kicks. It’s not like that with her. Deeper, though he doesn’t really know what that means. She decides for him. A spark flies from the end of the cigarette toward her. She skitters backward best she can still bound with the rope, eyes darting. It’s too far. “Maybe another time, huh?” He ashes the cigarette after a few long drags, his mind running through possibilities. He never can tell with her. June surprises him with her tolerance for pain, with her trust. But sometimes she’s paper thin. Sometimes even the smallest roughness is too much. Something inside of her, something she keeps from him, turns over fast and violent and she’s suddenly a crying mess in his arms. Hancock needs to be careful. Especially in a place like this. Especially with the last dregs of a shot of psycho still coursing through her. That’s why he told her to be quiet, wanted to give her something to focus on, something for her brain to chew on for a while.

He stands, his footsteps echoing as he stalks around her. “You know what I’d like?” He settles on his knees behind her, pulls her ass cheeks apart so he can get a good look at all that sweetness. “I’d like you full up.” He runs his thumb over the tight bundle of nerves between her cheeks. “Think I could find a bottle in this mess? Got be one around here right?” He shifts on his knees, trying to get a better angle. “Think this sweet ass could take something like that? A whole bottle?” He can see that every muscle in her back is taut. He imagines there’s a scream bitten back behind her teeth and traces her ribs with his fingers, a taunt and an assurance all rolled into one. There’s a little more to her now. She’s not scrawny like she was and Hancock doesn’t know why but damn if that doesn’t please him. He fumbles one-handed with his pants, freeing his aching cock. She startles when he runs the head softly against her clit and he strokes her flank to settle her. _Just a game,_ he hopes the touch reminds her, _it’s all just a game, sunshine._ “You’d be damn full to bursting, wouldn’t ya? Just need to find something for that pretty mouth and you’d be stuffed.” She looks back almost pleading. Her pupils are enormous and Hancock can tell by the way she’s darting her eyes back and forth that she’s honest to god spooked by the way he’s talking. Or, at the very least, unsure if he’s all talk. She likes to be scared. Told him that once from across a campfire. She likes to toe that edge, peer over the side down at the abyss. _But I need to be sure,_ she’d said, all serious, _that the person holding me isn’t gonna let go._ He’d taken that as a warning, and an invitation, and he ain’t about to lose his grip on her trust now. “No?” She bristles. “Fine.” He swats her so hard on the ass that she bites her lip to keep from crying out. “We’ll do it your way.” He wets his thumb in his mouth then sets it back on the tight bundle of her ass. He counts to five, rubbing and rubbing, then presses slowly inside. She gasps, but he allows it. They haven’t done this before. Talked about it, yeah, but the real thing ain’t quite the same. June’s got the tightest ass he’s ever felt and he’s about to break character and ask if it hurts too much when she rocks back on his thumb. “Well, well. Look how sweet you are. Ain’t that a damn sight.” He twists his hand so he can slip two fingers inside her pussy. “Fucking insatiable.” She moans and he swats her ass again. “What did I say about noises, huh?”

“I can’t take it, Hancock, I can’t take it.”

“Oh? She can’t take it, huh?” He glides his hand up her spine, taking her hair roughly in his fist. She arches toward him, crying out, until the smooth line of her neck is exposed to him. She yelps when he yanks again, fighting against the rope. “That doesn’t really sound like my problem, does it?” She falls silent, whole body trembling. Hancock can tell he’s toeing the edge of what she can take and he loosens his grip on her scalp, presses a soft kiss to her neck. “Do you think you can be a good girl for me, June?” She nods frantically. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes!” It comes out shrill.

“Well then,” he guides her back down onto her elbows, “maybe I would like to hear your pretty moans after all.”

“Thank you.” The raw gratitude in her voice does something to him. He wants suddenly to flip her over, hold her tight against his chest, whisper every sweet, soft thing he can think of. But she’s rutting back toward his cock, thighs shiny from how bad she's wantin', and Hancock ain’t never disappointed a lady when she asked as sweetly as that.

“Oh you are so welcome, sunshine.” She’s always so warm and wet for him. Always so tight. Hancock ain’t much of a romantic, but it sure does feel like coming home when he’s between these thighs of hers. She sighs when he’s all the way in. Actually fucking sighs like his cock is the biggest relief in the whole world. He leans down, feeling tender, and kisses a path down her spine. “You _are_ my good little girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” She says, voice shaking, “yes, _yes,_ god yes.”

 

She says his name so softly he barely hears it the first time. He’s busying himself with untying her, kissing along each place where the rope had been. She says it again and he hums against her skin. “Hancock, that was so fucking stupid.” He wants to laugh. Feisty little thing even after that.

He runs a finger down the seam of her pussy. “Uh huh.”

She’s sitting up now, leaning on her hands. “That was so dumb, are you listening to me?”

“Hanging on every word.” He leans back to rifle through his pack, searching for mentats.

She bucks away from him, scrambling for her vault suit, eyes ablaze and he stops his searching. That temper again. Unpredictable as a damn incendiary and just as fucking deadly. She can go either way after they do things like this. He learned that quickly. June likes him to be king of the castle, but she’s always gotta put him in his place afterward. It’s a rush usually, a fun little switch, but today she seems extra agitated. “Did we even clear this place? I don’t think we checked the goddamn basement. We could have fucking died just because you wanted to get your dick wet.” Her words are biting, but he can see she’s close to tears. He should have expected this really. The Commonwealth is fucked and only getting more so. Worse every day and he’s been watching shit pile up heavy on her shoulders. Hancock decides he’s just gotta weather this mood. Let her work all this energy out. He’ll take a little hollering if it means she can sleep better at night. “Do you have any fucking clue how goddamn reckless that was!?”

She’s going on and on, working herself red in the face. He notices that she’s holding herself funny, covering herself up, hiding from him. She’s scared, he realizes. Actually frightened. He hasn’t seen this on her in a long time, not since the airport. Hancock frowns. “June.” She startles, like maybe she didn’t realize she was saying all this out loud. “June, look at me.” She does, hands tight across her chest, legs closed like a vice. “You think I would ever put you in harm’s way?” She wilts a little, shoulders going slack. “Huh?”

“No.”

“ _No._ That’s right. You’re the best thing I got.” _I love you,_ he wants to say, _I’m in love with you._ The thought goes off like a bomb inside his own head. He thinks he might pass out, might throw up. Hancock forces the thought from his brain, tries to forget it ever formed.

“You must not have a lot.” Her voice is timid, but those eyes are sparkling. Danger always simmering under the surface. Always trouble.

He laughs, grateful that she’s like this too. That it’s hard for her to dip under the surface too. “God, sunshine, you really are something, aren’t you.” She’s slid her vault suit halfway on. The air in the library’s a little cold now, even for Hancock. He gets to his feet and helps her up, helps her zip the vault suit all the way back up. The way she melts into his touch feels a little like love, the way he kisses the places where the rope’s marked her feels a little like adoration. Her veins are pale and blue under her skin. It’s so thin, so easy to break. She has so many soft spots, so many places a knife could go. A bullet.  Terror coils in his gut.

“I’m sorry,” she says, glancing over her shoulder back at him. He blinks blankly at her, his thoughts still thick, his pulse still racing. “For, uh, for losing my temper.”

Hancock clears his throat. “Eh, don’t worry about it, sunshine. Happens to the best of us.” She turns all the way around to look at him, furrows her eyebrows. She’s asking him what’s wrong, giving him that space. He doesn’t take it, can’t walk through that opening. Stubborn, always stubborn. “Come on,” he says, hand firmly on her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	10. Grey Gardens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June finds a piece of pre-war life and Hancock wrestles with his own darkness.

Hancock can tell something is different the moment they arrive. The air feels different. Denser. Humid. June seems to feel it too, but it doesn’t seem to have the same vaguely menacing effect it’s having on him. Her eyes glitter, a smile peeking out from the corner of her lips. She checks her pipboy, her fingers shaking with excitement. _Greygarden._ He’s never heard of it and makes a note to get some of his people the hell on it, his skin itchy at the idea that he’s overlooked something this massive out in the wastes, especially with how close it is to the Weston Plant. All of this is making him feel salty and parched,  but June’s enthusiasm is suddenly unbridled. She’s got a glint of recognition in her eyes as they hike up the steep cliff to the spot on the map. They crest over the hill and June lets out a long, even breath. He glances over at her, wanting to ask what the fuck she finds so damn relaxing, but she’s already walking fast, on a goddamn mission. She stops just at the edge of the property, toeing the neat line of grass with her boot, like she half expects crossing that boundary will do something to her. “Well,” She startles at the sound of his voice, like she’s just remembered he’s there. He grins, sauntering over so he can whisper in her ear. “You just gonna stand there looking pretty, sunshine or are we gonna go in?” She turns to look at him, just out of the corner of her eyes. She’s got that sweet little half smirk she gives him sometimes, the one that makes him think, for just a second, that she’s gonna burn the whole place down. But then she just shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, and heads on into the place, rifle strapped lazily to her back. She isn’t expecting a fight.

They do this sometimes: she, playacting the naïve, barely armed sweet little thing; he, swooping in with the firepower. But it doesn’t seem like that’s how it’s going to go down today. June reaches up and pulls her hair from the bun she’s had it up in for days. It falls in soft waves down her back. The sun catches her shape, casting her in muted darkness, outlined in gold. Dangerous thing, to be this poetic about a woman, even after everything. It crosses his mind as they wind through the rows of trees, the scent of mutfruit heavy and sugared in the air, that he should go back to Goodneighbor. Leave June with Nicky or Piper or whoever the hell else she pals around with out here and get Fahrenheit to set his head back on straight, warm his ass in that big lonely throne for a while. Throw his weight around again. June glances back at him, like she can hear his thoughts. She has pretty teeth, he thinks vaguely, has possibly the prettiest smile he’s seen in his whole goddamn life. She winks at him, disappearing behind the thick foliage of one of the trees. Goodneighbor evaporates like steam.

 

June may be immediately at ease in Greygarden, but Hancock can barely stand it. The glass on the greenhouse is so clean, the trees in such orderly lines. Hancock’s immediately on edge. His fingers seek his belt, thumb running over the hilt of his knife when the white robot bobs toward them. June glances back at him as the white robots drones on a mean, honeyed like he’s never heard on a mister handy. June’s giving him that sort of petulant, bratty look she’s so damn good at it. He winks at her to get her off his trail, to try and hide his unease. Satisfied, she turns back to her conversation and he turns back to casing as much of the place as he can from where they’re standing.

June’s asking a lot of questions. More than usual. She seems younger suddenly, effervescent. Almost bubbly. If robots could preen, the white one would, clearly flattered by all this attention. And whatever she’s doing, she’s unlocked something in June. June tells her that she was in cryo, just offers it up, tell the robot that she was alive before the war, that she was living in New York and Hancock can barely contain his shock. She doesn’t tell people that, not anymore. She’s quick on her feet with lies, always judging which origin story fits best with who she’s got in front of her. It’s a neat trick. One that Piper suggested, one that Hancock helps her fill out. Most often she tells people she’s a vault dweller. Gives her a little air of naivete that she can use, but isn’t all that noteworthy, doesn’t make people scrutinize her for too long. So to be here, out in the middle of nowhere, telling some banged up maid bot her life story, is bizarre to say the goddamn least. Or maybe Hancock’s just jealous. He shoots her a look that she easily ignores.

 

They spend the night on the floor of the greenhouse, its thin glass groaning eerily in the wind. It’s a tactical nightmare. Lit up like a damn lantern on the top of a goddamn hill, most of the building open and exposed. Nowhere but trees for cover. Hancock imagines that even June would shatter the glass if she tried to climb up to get the shooting advantage she needs to be worth a damn in a fight. He wanted to sleep in the mostly intact homestead just down the hill, but June’d made such an incredible fuss about it that he folded. Even she couldn’t break the lock to the basement’s door and that spooked her so bad she’d fled from the house like a skittish animal, leaving Hancock among the shattered furniture and grime. He doesn’t tend to argue when she gets a look in her eye like that. Hancock shifts on his back, trying to get comfortable. The greenhouse isn’t _that_ bad. The floor’s hard as hell but there’s this kind of nice, ambient light and the quiet whir of the robots floating above them is sort of soothing.

June looks like a baby as she sleeps. Out harder than maybe he’s ever seen her. She looks more peaceful than he thought possible. After they’d fuck she’d be boneless, especially if he roughed her around, but he realizes now that there’s an extra inch of fear in her, just a little knot of terror left inside her. Being here has smoothed it out. That sits heavy in his gut. He scolds himself. Shit, John, don’t be a fool. Jealous of a greenhouse and a few buckets of bolts? Really?

June rolls to face him, fast asleep, hair a golden tangle around her face. He watches her chest rise and fall and wonders what John McDonough would have done with a girl like this, if he would have been deserving. If he’s deserving now. It’s more introspection than he’s used to, but he tries it on. Follows the train of thought just to see where it takes him, like a high he’s never felt before, just testing it out.

One of the robots whirs past and the light refracting off its round, metallic body casts dark shadows over her face. She looks young when she sleeps, but worn out too. Tired as all hell and there’s something about it that pisses Hancock the hell off. At himself mostly. Like he’s been doing a slack job, like he’s been failing. Well, these thoughts ain’t comfortable. He kneads the spots beside where his nose should be, begging sleep to come pay him a visit. His pack’s across the room and he imagines that if he gets up to slip some medex out, the robots will swarm him like bees. At the very least it’ll wake June and she _needs_ whatever deep, dreamless sleep this place has gifted her.

June sighs in her sleep and Hancock rolls back over to face her. He reaches out to touch her, but stops midway, hand suspended just inches from her face. It suddenly feels too intimate to touch her like that. He’s been all over her damn body. Tongue and teeth and fingers and cock. Every inch of her. He’s spit in her mouth, run his tongue from her clit up between her ass cheeks. He's fucked every damn hole she’s got. But this? Her quietly asleep? He isn’t sure he really deserves that. Like maybe it isn’t for him. Hancock rolls over until his back’s to her, facing out into the night.

 

In the morning, when the sky is still that pale blue before the sun rises, they eat breakfast on a bluff overlooking the ruined highway overpass just across the river. “I saw something about this place” June says between bites, “on tv. Before the war, I mean.”

“This place existed before the war?” She nods. Well, shit. Hancock gets it now, gets why this place got her all doe-eyed and soft. Hell, he imagines that anything that looks even remotely like it did before the bombs fell probably comforts her, just a little.

“For a couple of weeks, at least. If I remember the news right it had barely opened when the bombs fell. Got nuked to shit like the rest of us. Mad scientist and all.”

The white robot mentioned something about that. Their creator. Hancock had mostly tuned most of it out, but he puts the pieces into place now. He lights a cigarette and leans back, watching as a few raiders pack up their camp way across the river. “That why you didn’t want to sleep in the house?”

She frowns, reaching blindly for his cigarette. He relinquishes it. “He’s probably down there right.”

Hancock shrugs. “Probably. Either feral or a corpse.”

“Or he isn’t feral.” She passes the cigarette back, a plume of smoke passing between her pretty lips, and looks hard at him. “Maybe he’s just a normal ghoul and he’s been trapped down there,” her voice goes quiet, just barely a whisper, “for centuries.”

“Not likely.”

She huffs. “I found someone like that, you know. A little kid. Trapped in a refrigerator of all things. For, like, two hundred years. Two. Hundred. Years. Can you believe that?”

“Yeah, Nicky told me about that.”

“Does Valentine tell you everything?”

“Just about.”

She rolls her eyes. “I can’t imagine anything worse than that.”

“Talking to Valentine?”

She snorts, nudging him playfully. Hancock beams, but she’s grim again before the smile can even leave his ruined lips. Lost in thought. His serious, serious girl. “Trapped like that. Can you imagine?” He can’t and doesn’t really want to, but June ain’t deterred. “All alone in the dark. You don’t have a clue what’s happening. Can’t figure out why you haven’t died yet.”

 _That_ throws him for a little bit of a loop. There’s something about the way she says it, something about _what_ she’s saying. He mulls it over. It makes him feel a little cold thinking like that. Hancock looks at her from the corner of his eye. “You feel that way when they had you on ice?”

She jolts, looking wide-eyed at him. “What? Oh god, no. I don’t remember a thing.” She frowns again. “Or, I mean, I don’t remember a lot.”

Hancock sits up, resting an arm on his bent knee. “What do ya remember.” June brushes him off with a shrug, pours her attention into her breakfast. He’s got half a mind to press, but it’s a nice morning and, besides, some of what she said is really sticking on his brain. He’d gone blind after the dose. For two weeks, Fahrenheit told him, but time had become so slow and fractured that he couldn’t even begin to guess how long he’d laid in that bed. It had become the beginning and end of his world. He’d fumble down his own body, each day the topography changing under his fingertips. He couldn’t track the pain coursing through it. Without his eyes, it radiated carelessly up his skin. He’d cried like a baby, howled like an animal. And each moment that passed where the pain cleared enough for his thoughts to return, he wondered, sometimes aloud, why he hadn’t died yet. June had put into words the feeling he’d been trying to dislodge from his memory for years. He looks at her, really looks at her, and wonders what her moment was. Was it those first seconds when the cold crept in, as she pounded the glass, scientists jeering at her from the other side, her clothes still smelling like ash? Was it when she pried herself out of cryo, alone, the vault thick with rot? Or something else that she hadn’t told him about? Something worse.

“Hancock?” He nearly jumps out of his skin, checks himself to make sure he’s still all in one piece. June’s watching him closely, perched like a little bird on the bluff, knees pulled tight to her chest. “You’re scaring me.”

Hancock bares his teeth, slipping easily away from his own dark memories. “Maybe I’m about to go feral.”

June’s eyes go dark, simmering under her lashes. She’s frowning even deeper. “Stop it.”

“Hell June, I’m just kidding around.”

June bristles. He can almost feel the electricity of her dark energy wafting off her. “Well, it’s not funny. It’s not funny okay.”

He softens his voice. “June.” He reaches toward her, but she shimmies out of his grip. She’s a livewire and he’s losing patience, already on edge.  “What’s got you pulled so tight, huh?”

“Everything.” She’s on her feet, skittish as a bird, but he’s quicker, pulling her hard toward him. She yelps and the sound snaps him out of it. Shit. What the hell had gotten into him to be rough like that with her? Like she's some scoundrel back in Goodneighbor.He softens his grip. “Shit, June I’m sorry.”  He lets go and she retracts her arm like he’d burned her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rough.”

“It’s fine.”

“Don’t got to be.”

She looks hard at him, hands crossed over her chest. The air between them has sharpened and he feels suddenly dangerous. Like he’s capable of anything. He remembers that day in Goodneighbor, when she’d come worn out and shivering from blasting a hole through his strongroom. The day sits on a razor's edge. He could have killed her, could have hurt her real bad. He’d done worse for less. The thought startles him, but she doesn’t seem to notice, seems settled a little. “What’s got you pulled so tight, huh?” Her voice teasing and soft. It worries him sometimes that she can do this. Just slip so easily out of a feeling, an event, discard it and move on. He hopes it's a talent and not a coping mechanism. But he's done enough thinking today to last him a whole goddamn lifetime and he takes the olive branch she offers, feels a little more like himself. The dark thoughts that had started simmering dissipate now and he reaches in his pack for a jet, wanting to slow things down.

“You, mostly.” June snorts, then smiles up at him. The rising sun’s at her back and Hancock feels almost transformed. Like a bolt of light between John McDonough and the John Hancock who stood bloodied on the balcony of the State House. Their darkness meets silently between them. Unspoken. “Where are we off to, huh?” June shrugs, glancing mischievously back at him. He falls in step with her, shoulder to shoulder. His devotion is frightening. It’s the best drug he’s ever tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3


	11. Prime Time*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hancock learns more about June than he bargained for and finds that his own demons aren't as buried as he thinks.

They’d come up from the foundations of the houses. Parts of them flattened, parts torn. Their bodies make slicks, bones crackling when they catch their wayward limbs on broken window panes, on the shattered remains of doors. Hancock runs his fingers along his own skin as they approach, shambling like an old horror movie. His fingertips find the grooves on his arms, knots like old wood. There are places on his body where the skin is so thin and translucent that he can see the meat of his muscle.

They’re almost the same, he thinks. He and these monsters. Brothers. Cousins, maybe. Becoming a ghoul dulled some of his sensation. It made pain less important, less real. But it heightened sensation too, the radiation exposing his raw nerves. Sometimes he can feel the air still around him, feel the sound of people’s voices.

So as he watches the ferals pull themselves from their dark hiding places, leaving pieces of themselves in trails behind them, he wonders what it would feel like to be that numb. Or maybe they’re just oblivious. Maybe the pain runs livid through them, but their brains are so heavy with radiation that the sensation has no destinations, devoid now of meaning. Hancock isn’t sure which is worse. The psycho he shot when he first heard their rumbling is wearing off and as he comes hard down to earth, ferals thrashing around him, he realizes that he’s lost sight of June. Panic grips him so tightly that he stumbles. A feral regains its footing at his misstep and swings its heavy, warped arm toward him. June’s pooch makes quick work of it, springing from the fray, teeth sinking hard into its neck. Hancock wipes its blood from his face with its palm. It’s a livid red, vital and warm. It smells acrid, almost electrical. Inhuman. Hancock shudders. His own blood is suddenly hot under his skin. In the periphery, June screams and it reminds him what the fuck he’s supposed to be doing out here.

June never does well with ferals. Something about the way they move, he guesses. She told him once that she was sure they could smell her. That no matter how quiet she moved, no matter how completely she stuck to the shadows, they always got the jump on her. Hancock’s inclined to agree, though he aint sure if ferals can smell much of anything. He’s seen her shimmy just inches past super mutants, none of them the wiser. She’s light on her feet, quiet as a whisper, but the ferals always seek her out. Maybe they can smell her fear. He almost can.

From the corner of his eye, Hancock sees her wrestle away from one. She skitters off into the shadows. She’s more comfortable there, he knows that now. Prefers to be unseen. Or, at least, overlooked. The universe really screwed the pooch when it made a girl as sly and wily as June that goddamn pretty. Head turner even in the middle of a fight.  

The rest of the ferals go down quick. Hancock wipes the gore off his knife, trying not to think too hard about the blood. That thought still stuck between his temples. When he’s sure they’re down for good, he goes seeking out his girl. To his relief, she’s all in one piece, tucked behind an old, overturned car. Uninjured far as he can tell, but she’s rattled in the kind of quiet way he doesn’t really see all that often. The sort where her eyes get big and doe-like, where she’s got the inside of her cheek caught between her teeth. Funny, really, that he’s got a catalog of this broad’s fears. No, not _this broad._ Christ, he’s been slipping back into his old bullshit real easy these days. Like he can’t play good boy for too long without fraying at the edges. He’s cracking a little under the strain of it is relieved when he finds a few hits of jet still in is pack.“You alright, sugar?” June scowls, but falls in step beside him as they walk, sticking so close he can smell the sweet scent of her hair. He has half a mind to thread his fingers through it and yank her over, kiss her until she can’t breathe, but her eyes are darting back and forth, hands clasped nervously at her chest. Most people don’t get to see this side of her. Hell, he usually doesn’t see this side of her. It’s beyond fear, he can feel that, something closer to dread. Like in Sanctuary. That night when he’d watched her back until morning, a string of bulbs blinking brightly above them. He’s been thinking about Sanctuary lately, been thinking about the world that June knew. Each billboard they pass on the road; every magazine they find, pages brittle and torn, he wonders what it means to her, what it reminds her of. Besides, shit has been different. He can feel that easy. She’s been drifting off more when they talk, when they fuck, sleeping less, eating like she did when they first met. That vault suit ain’t fitting so snug anymore. So when they find a rickety, little guard tower with a couple sleeping bags on its dusty floor, he decides he’s gonna try to talk this one out. A real diplomat and all that.

“Can I ask you something?”

June pauses. She’s been looting around the room, long fingers searching out the junk she likes so much. Pages from magazines and little ceramic figurines. Pretty things, delicate things. Sometimes when he thinks about it, it feels like his heart’s getting real big. Tender, that’s how he feels. But it, apparently, is not how he sounds. June eyes him carefully. “Do I have a choice?”

“You always got a choice, sweet thing.”

One side of her mouth ticks upward, just a little. “But you’re gonna ask me anyway, aren’t you?”

Hancock grins. “Sure am.” June rolls her eyes. “You’re not spooked by much.”

June’s laugh is honeyed. But quiet. She glances back toward the darkness beyond the tower. She looks out for a long time, then sits across from where he’s sitting, knees pulled up to her chest. “Debatable.”

Hancock chuckles. “Alright, that’s fair. How’s this: some things freak you extra. Really work their way under their skin.”

"Oh yeah?" Her nose twitches and he knows he's heading somewhere she doesn't really want to go. But she knows so much about him. So many nights too high and too liquored up he'd told her everything. Just about. Told her about the way looking up at the glittering stands from the roof of his family's shack by the wall filed him with the most hopeless longing. About that moment, like a knife clean between his ribs, when he'd stopped recognizing his own brother. That junkie terror those first months in Goodneighbor. The blood on his hands. The guilt that stared him so hard in the face every morning. The rush of vertigo that first time on the balcony of the State House. She's listened to it all and almost never returned the favor, but he knows the shit she's got trailing behind her is just as dark. He can tell by the way she takes his confessions, that tacit understanding, and he doesn't know if trying to yank the past out of her is an act of mercy or an act of violence.  Hancock figures it might be both.

"Don't be evasive," he teases. She huffs, toeing the line between playful and pissed off. If he had any mentats left, he'd probably try to play this smarter. But he's clean out and so he falls back into old habits. He bludgeons his way through. "I wanna know why." 

"Why what?" 

"I wanna know you don't flinch at a super mutant nest, but the wrong kind of lighting can make you all skittish"

She frowns. "If you're going to ask me something John, just do it." 

"I want to know about Sanctuary."

She pauses and, if he didn't know her so well, he might have missed the careful way she tries to school her face. "Why? Goodneighbor getting into the expansion game?" 

"No offense, sweetheart, but I don't give a rat's ass about your dinky little settlement out on the ass end of nowhere." 

"Hey now." 

He grins. "I said no offense." June shifts where she's sitting cross-legged on the old wood floor, weighing her knees down with her palms.  He still hasn't had time to read up on the kind of dance she said she did back in New York City, but damn if it didn't make her flexible as all hell and damn if he hadn't been having all kinds of fun with that. Moving her all kinds of positions, spreading those legs real wide. He wishes his cock would let him be serious for one goddamn minute around June. Hell. 

"Guess I don't know what you mean." 

Hancock lights a cigarette and takes a long drag. The glowing tip flickers in his black eyes. "You know exactly what I mean. I want to know about  _you._ Before everything got nuked to shit." 

She bristles like an angry bird. "I've told you. You know where I'm from. I've told you all about my sister, I-" 

"You know goddamn well that's not what I want. Give me a little credit." June flinches and he realizes he's been using his mayoral voice. The one he'd use for the drifters who are way over their heads in debt, the one he might use when he's got the tip of his knife under the fingernails of some poor sap down in the cells.

"I just want to know how you ended up here." 

"Why?" 

"Hell, June. I know I ain't the most lovey-dovey, but I think we got something going between us, don't you? I just want to get to know you better." 

June's holding herself like it's a real cold night even though the day's oppressive heat is still thick in the air. "I'm not sure there's much to know. Besides, anything worth talking about is a long story." 

Hancock reclines a little. He wants to look casual, relaxed, but Fahrenheit told him he's the most menacing when he's like that. He hopes June knows better by now. "Do I look like I got some place to be?" She seems to consider it. The light from the lantern is casting wide shadows over her face. June shivers, like she's sensed something unpleasant, and glances behind her into the darkness. "Why are you so touchy about this?" 

She looks back at him hesitantly. "It was just freaky, I don't know." She shrugs. "The last couple of years before the bombs were...kind of heavy." 

"Can't be heavier than the shit show you woke up in." 

June sighs. "I'm not sure you'd understand." 

Hancock leans back, rolling the sharp edge of his knife over each knuckle. June watches as the light from the lantern gleams on the blade. "Why don't you try me?"

"It was hard." June doesn't say what was hard and so Hancock assumes that it's everything and it pricks his heart. He gets that, when everything ain't going even close to plan. 

"Harder than here?" 

She rocks her head back and forth, not a yes, not a no. "In some ways, yeah. Sometimes it's easier here. I don't know."  She glances to the left, where the ruins of Boston loom in the distance. Gun smoke rises from the rooftops, the bright popping of incendiaries off over the bridge. "I just need things to be...a little unsettled. I don't know why." 

He can see that, remembers the sort of manic hedonism that sometimes passes over her like a wave. "Even before the war?" 

"Yeah, definitely." She tucks her knees up under her chin again, makes herself real small. "Sanctuary Hills was just...not my kinda place. I didn't fit in, I didn't know the rules. I mean, I was only there for a few months and I'd already...I don't know. I wasn't exactly popular in the neighborhood." 

"That it?" Hancock grunts as he sits a little straighter. Man, he has been missing his bed in the State House something fierce as of late. They've been striking out, sleeping hard on floors or threadbare sleeping bags for days and both of them seem a little stiff. June especially. Christ, he'd like to have her back in Goodneighbor. Like to have her naked and spread out on his sheets. He could soothe all that tension right out of her. The tension, right. Back to the matter at hand. She's watching him like a damn hawk, waiting for him to fucking say something. He clears his throat. "Not fitting end hardly seems like it'd be the end of your world, sunshine. Doesn't seem like it warrants the kind of spooked you get whenever we're within spitting distance of that damn settlement." 

"I mean my sister didn't really fit in either. I don't know." She reaches roughly for his cigarette. He relinquishes it, knowing better than to get in her way when a mood like this is brewing. "And it's not like I showed up in the best shape, Christ. It's complicated, okay? It's all really complicated." 

"Alright, I get it, I get it." 

She looks at him sourly. "You don't." 

"You're right. I don't. So why don't you tell me?"

"I don't know what you want me to say." 

Hancock rifles in his pack for some of the jerky he lifted from the last raider camp they cleared and tosses one her way. She ignores it. He'd usually make that more of a thing, but tonight he's trying to ease his way in. He changes his approach. "So what did you do there? Take care of the kid?" 

June snorts and passes the cigarette back. Hancock told her once that she could just have her own, didn't need to keep taking drags off his. She'd just shrugged him off. It'd pissed him off at first, but now he likes having the taste of her in his mouth. Especially likes it when she does it in front of other people. Lets 'em know exactly where he stands with her. "Do you think I'd be any good with kids? Come on."Hancock smiles. He doesn't imagine she has the patience for that. "Besides, that's what Nora got Codsworth for." 

"So what? You spend your days twiddling your thumbs?" Just the ghost of a smile appears on her lips and Hancock knows he's got his foot in the door. "Tell me, sweet thing, what kind of trouble you get up to?" 

"God, hardly any." She leans back on her hands, staring up at the sky now speckled with stars. She'd asked him once, half asleep on some bare mattress they'd found, what he thought was out there, up in the stars. He'd confessed that he'd never thought about it and she'd been stunned, telling him about all the things she thought might be there, the things she hoped might be there. She'd looked so young when she told him that. Vulnerable and open and raw and all right there, just in front of him. He'd never felt tender like that. When he looks at her now, still gazing up at those stars, that tenderness roars back to life. It scares him now, this feeling. The intensity of it. She has his whole heart between her fingers and she doesn't even know it. He barely does. "Or at least by today's standards, Christ"

Hancock jolts back to reality, the memory slipping quickly away. He fumbles in his pack. "You mind if I, uh," he lifts his last inhaler of jet and waggles it between his fingers. 

June shrugs. "Course not."

"Atta girl." The first hit goes down a little rough. His voice is raspier when he speaks next.  "And what were yesterday's standards then?"

"My  _existence_ was trouble in 2077."

He winks. "It's trouble now." She smiles and averts her eyes, blushing a little. Goddamn he loves it when he can get her to blush. "So come on, paint me a picture, huh? What did you do all day?" 

"Watched t.v. mostly. Hours and hours of it. Pretty much all day long." She rolls her neck, wincing as it pops. Hancock slides over next to her, working his strong fingers through the tight muscles at the base of her shoulders. She sighs, letting her head roll a little back.  _This_ is what he likes to see, her all soft and sweet like this. He has half a mind to stop this little line of questioning and put his fingers to better use, but June's got to talking and he sure ain't gonna stop her. Not with how much prying it took him to get this far. "I bet you I could hum the jingle for every single shitty commercial that aired in 2077. Really. I watched every dumb daytime soap nearly start to finish."

"Sounds like a trip." He has some idea what she's talking about, but not enough to really picture it. "Sounds boring too. I always wanted to watch tv. Read about it in a couple magazines back in Diamond City. Just not sure if I could do it sober." 

"Who said I was sober?" 

"Yeah? You boozin' all day long too?" 

"Ha! Absolutely not. Hardly a drop of liquor in that house." 

"Your sister not a big drinker?" 

"Not after Nate, no. Before he..." she flinches, "you know, he drank all the fucking time. When I first met him, he was the kind of guy who'd leave his beer half finished, but, man, after the war..." she shakes her head, "it was something else. First thing we had to do when I showed up was empty out all his liquor. We piled all the bottles out on the sidewalk by the trash." She glances over at him. "You had to do that back then. Separate the recycling out from the - oh it doesn't matter. Anyway, the whole neighborhood stood out and gawked. I was wearing one of my practice leotards and some old, worn shorts. Not the kind of thing I'd ever usually wear outside, but then again it was a quiet afternoon. I wasnt expecting anyone to be out." She sighs. "So, yeah, that was my introduction to the neighborhood. Nora's unmarried sister from New York. Wearing next to nothing, hauling a pile of empty wine bottles onto the curb. And hell, I was in a bad state too. Must have looked like a wreck. I was barely pulling myself together as it was, you know?" Hancock nods even though he's not really following. She frowns. "I had this crazy idea - had it for months, really - that there were still bits of him in the grass. Nate, I mean. Just absolutely convinced that I'd find some sliver of bone or clump of bloody hair. Something the paramedics missed." She shivers. "Awful." 

"Awful," Hancock agrees, still trying to parse out what some of the words she's using mean. Her tone ain't betraying anything either. He can't tell if this is the kind of thing he should make a joke about or not. Sometimes she likes that, when he pretends nothing bothers him. But he doesn't have time to decide before she's talking again. He's opened the goddamn flood gates today and something in the air, something about the way she seems electrified as she talks, is giving him the willies. 

"No, I mostly just smoked weed. Uppers if I could get my hands on them, but pills were hard to find in the suburbs. Weed was easier to get a hold of. Besides," she smiles a little shyly up at him, "I liked the way it made me feel." 

"And how's that?" Hancock always feels a little cheated when June talks about drugs before the bombs. Like there was a whole smorgasbord that he ain't ever gonna get the chance to try. 

It would make you feel...I don't know. I'm not sure I can describe it." She stops, thinking, teeth working her lower lips. "Soft," she decides, looking up at him again, "It makes you feel soft."

"Sounds nice." 

"I used to read these books. In the afternoons when the stations started replaying the morning's shows, before they'd start playing prime time in the evening." She has a faraway smile. "You could get them in the checkout line at the grocery store. I did all the shopping for Nora. She couldn't stand grocery stores. Never could figure out why." She glances over at Hancock, to make sure he's still listening. He sure as hell is. It would take another goddamn bomb to pull his attention away now. She ain't never talked this much about her family, about her life before. "She was easily overstimulated. Needed things to be just so. Visited me once in New York and could barely stand it. The opposite of me really. I like to be overwhelmed."

"Oh, don't I know it." He winks. 

She rolls her eyes. "Anyway, I like grocery stores. Or liked, I guess. I'd take my bike down on sunny days and I'd buy one of these books with the groceries.Then I'd head home and sit out on the porch and read them until Nora came home from work." Hancock's trying to keep up. He wonders suddenly if she doesn't talk about all of it, because she's afraid she won't be understood, that all her references will be lost on him. He doesn't want that, works hard to seem like he's getting every word. "These books were total trash. Bodice rippers." She grins. "Just total smut."  

"Smut, huh?"

"Oh yeah, pretty much just pornography, really. Like bend you over the table shit." Hancock chuckles, lighting another cigarette. It's a nice little thought: June horny and wet one some pre-war front porch, rubbing her thighs together to get a little friction. Oh yeah, Hancock could definitely get some mileage with that little fantasy. Maybe she's feeling that way too, because she scoots a little closer, plays with the collar of his shirt with those long fingers of hers. 'They were terrible. Just awful. Written like trash, but there was something about them, you know? They always had the same plots. Some dashing, powerful man coming to the rescue. All suave and heroic. And then he's a fucking rocket in the sack. That's the whole thing. Some contrived rescue and then two hundred pages of fucking." 

Hancock growls a little in the base of his throat. "You looking to get rescued, sweetheart." 

She demurs, eyes simmering. Her voice barely above a whisper."I might be." 

Hancock crawls over her body, pressing a kiss to the side of her mouth. "Well, I am  _happy_ to oblige." Hancock leans back to slough off his overcoat, but when he does, he catches something in her eyes that stops him. "You all good, sunshine?" 

"Yeah, yeah sure," but she's looking off center, mouth pulled just slightly down. "Sometimes they freaked me out." 

Hancock swallows hard. He moves a little away from her, giving her room. "What did?" 

The books. Sometimes they would get me all hot and bothered, but sometimes..." 

"What? Sometimes what?" The lantern is flickering, the light dimmer now. June looks smaller than she should, thinner than he remembers. How could he let this happen?  _When_ did this happen? They hadn't been apart for that long this last time. Just a few weeks. Had he really not been paying attention? No, he hadn't. He'd been pouring all his energy into Goodneighbor, into chems. Busting heads and shooting up and, shit, did she look this tired the last time he saw her? 

"I don't know. I didn't want to feel that stuff anymore. Reading about it was fine, but sometimes I'd be out on the porch and one of the husbands from across the street would come over and-" 

"And what?" Hancock's voice has dropped a few octaves. He's bearing his teeth without even thinking. 

She looks at him, a little startled. "Oh, nothing. None of  _them_ ever touched me." 

If he had hairs on his neck anymore, they'd be standing straight at attention. "So what? So what would happen?" 

"I'd just get nervous. The way they looked at me sometimes..." She frowns. "I decided on the plane ride to Boston that I'd never let a man touch me again." 

Hancock scowls. The way she said that's chilled him, but he tries to keep his voice even. "Don't seem to be keeping your word." 

June chuckles softly. "You were awfully convincing." 

Hancock leans back, lights another cigarette to buy him time. He wishes he hadn't taken that jet. It's making him feel foggy and unsteady. "So what the hell would make you decide something like that anyway." 

She shrugs again. "Nothing really." 

"Doesn't sound like nothing. Sounds like a whole lot of something to me." 

She smiles, but it's canned, doesn't reach her eyes. Hancock finds it a little eerie. "I wish you'd been there." She softens a little when she says it, like she's just confessed something she's been holding onto for a long time. 

Hancock brushes her hair off her shoulders, arranges her in front of him. "Yeah? Why's that?" 

"I don't know. If I'd known someone like you in New York..." 

"What?" 

Her smile is a little sad. "I could have used someone like you in New York." 

"Well you got me now." 

"True." She rests her head on his shoulder, letting her hands rest lightly on his thighs. "Besides, I don't know if you would have liked it before the war." 

"No?

"Not sure. It was different." She peers up at him, still nuzzled into the crook of his neck. "'Do you ever imagine yourself back there?" 

He used to, sometimes. Mostly when he was younger. It's trickier for him to try and imagine himself there now, especially with the real deal right in front of him. He'd probably say something naive. "Sure, why not?" He wraps his arms around her and inhales. She smells sugary, warm. His eyes flutter closed. He lets his imagination wipe the radiation from the landscape, fills it in with those big, full trees he saw in her memory. He can see her perched on a porch railing, long legs dangling in the breeze. He puts her in some slip of a dress, watches as it falls down her shoulders while she pages through a paperback. It's harder to imagine himself. He used to have red hair. A trickster color, his mother used to say. His freckles made him look boyish, mischievous. Eyes as green as the wall, his father told him. He'd been handsome. Everyone thought so. Handsome and wily, nothing like his stout, boorish brother. Maybe the resentment had started even then. Hancock imagines the pre-war world might find him handsome too. 

One of the girls he toured around with in Diamond City used to call him a hound dog. Would he have been one before the end of the world too? Nature or nurture or nuclear fallout, who's to say. Hancock tries to imagine himself in Sanctuary Hills, but can't. June probably felt the same way when she showed up there. He doesn't imagine he would have managed to behave even before the bombs, probably would have been a scoundrel pre-war too, though he ain't sure what that would look like. Maybe he would have ended up in New York. Maybe he would have met June there. Hancock shifts on his knees a little, stroking June's back. "How'd they go about courting pre-war huh?" 

June snorts. "Courting? That what you think you did to me?" He smiles a sly smile, all teeth. Her eyes flash and he knows he looks like a predator, like the kind of dangerous she likes. "They would have put you in jail before the war." 

"Oh yeah? And what do you know about any of that?" 

"More than you think." 

"Oh yeah, I bet you do." He takes her by the jaw, pushing her back so he can get a good look at her. "You're right at home in Goodneighbor. I know you ain't as sweet as you look." He kisses along her jaw. "You got a taste for bad men." 

Her fingers skim his cheek, her voice soft. "You're not a bad man." 

Hancock takes her hand and kisses each finger. "I am, sunshine, I really am." 

"Not to me." 

He holds her hand against his ruined lips and breathes hot through her fingers. "Never to you." 

 

She's pulsing around nothing, her orgasm still rolling over her, sprawled out on her back like the prettiest damn thing he's seen in his whole life. Hancock's cum drips debauched from her pussy onto the floor. He watches her, softening cock in one hand, the other trailing up her thigh. "Goddamn, you look so good and fucked." He slips two fingers inside of her and June gasps, twitching away from his hand. "That's a good girl. All nice and sensitive." His fingers are drenched in their combined fluids when he slides them out. "Fucking Christ, look at this mess." He taps them on her waiting lips. "Clean it up." She laves his fingers with her lips, lavishing attention on each knuckle. It's a study in devotion and he's hot for it. Hancock presses the thumb of his other hand onto her clit and she goes rigid with anticipation. "You're gonna cum for me again, alright?" She looks helplessly up at him, body still trembling. "You're gonna cum until I tell you it's enough." Her eyes roll back, lashes fluttering, like just the idea is doing it for her. He leans down to take her clit in his mouth, but something stops him, leaves him hovering just over her. He suddenly wants to ask about the plane to Boston. It's stupid as hell, really, for him to be thinking like this while she's spread out like a goddamn dessert for him, but he can't get it out of his mind.  

"John." She squirms under his grip. "John, god, please." He runs his thumb in soft circles over her clit and looks up the expanse of her body. She's so beautiful and soft. Taut and nimble and pretty. She's too good. Too good for him. Too good for whatever the fuck happened in New York. She shudders when he finally kisses between her legs. _I'm sorry_ , he wants to say,  _I'm sorry that this is your lot in life. I'm sorry that you ended up with a scoundrel like me._  June trails her nimble fingers down until she reaches his scalp. She digs her nails in, rolls her hips against his mouth. "Oh god, John. I love this, fuck, I love this." It sounds almost like I love  _you_  and he lets the guilt bleed out of him. Lets her skin and pussy and fingernails be the only thing in his world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's this fan art circulating around, y'all probably know it, that is like a study of Hancock transforming into a ghoul. I cannot for the life of me find the artist who made it, but it's incredible. Anyway, the smooth skin version of him has red hair and that's my headcanon. Thanks so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!


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